By Adedapo Adesanya
President Bola Tinubu has congratulated the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Akinwumi Adesina, on the award of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership.
Mr Adesina joins the pantheon of other previous winners of the award such as Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, Mr Wole Soyinka; former President of South Africa, Mr Thabo Mbeki, and lawyer-educationist, Mr Afe Babalola.
President Tinubu commended the AfDB President, who was once Nigeria’s agriculture minister, for his visionary and noble endeavour to transform agriculture in Africa and ensure food security on the continent.
He recalled the growth enhancement schemes revolutionizing Nigeria’s agriculture value chains he introduced as the then Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The President acknowledged Mr Adesina’s unblemished records, tried and tested integrity, as well as his immense leadership and development strides, particularly in agriculture, efforts of which have earned him numerous honours and recognition globally, including the World Food Prize in 2017.
President Tinubu also wished the AfDB President more success at AfDB and strength in his service to Africa and to humanity at large.
The Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership was first announced in December 2012, with the official award ceremony held on March 6, 2013.
The award is an initiative of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, set up in April 1992, to serve as the custodian of Chief Awolowo’s intellectual property and leadership legacy values and norms.
Established as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organisation dedicated to immortalizing the democratic and development-oriented ideals of the late Awolowo, the organizers of the event, say the award is a “prestigious, biennial, international prize structured to follow a rigorous process of nomination and subsequent screening by a Selection Committee consisting of some of the most outstanding Nigerians”.
Modupe Gbadeyanka