The former Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has urged naysayers to back off, as her appointment as an Alternate Executive Director (AED) of the World Bank was fully endorsed by former President Muhammadu Buhari before he left power.
The comments spring from some media reports alluding to the fact that she bypassed the federal government’s nomination procedures to appropriate the position to herself.
Speaking through media aide, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, the former Minister confirmed the appointment, which is expected to take effect from July 10, 2023, but denied reports that she did not tread the due process path.
“The report (about not following due process) is false. Mr President (Muhammadu Buhari) approved the nomination. This was conveyed to the bank.
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“The World Bank is a reputable organisation with its rules and processes.
“Secondly, anyone working at that level of AED must be a representative of his or her country and would have gotten such approval and endorsement from his or her government,” Abdullahi stated.
He said the position became available in October 2022 when the World Bank wrote to Nigeria seeking nomination for the position.
Following a notification from the World Bank, the media aide said the former President gave the approval in April 2023 for the former Minister to take up the position.
However, he said the former President’s approval was with the understanding that Mrs Ahmed would delay her assumption of office till after her tenure as the Minister of Finance.
Abdullahi clarified that the former Minister could not have nominated herself and also approved the appointment as the report insinuated.
The media was awash with reports that on the eve of the expiration of the tenure of the Buhari administration, the former Minister “single-handedly nominated herself as the federal government’s candidate without the approval of the outgoing President and the incoming President Bola Tinubu.”
The reports further alleged that the plot was “conceived and hatched by a former Minister of Finance against Nigeria to circumvent and deny Nigeria of quality representation at the World Bank Group for several months and fraudulently nominating herself for the job, by appropriating the position to herself without recourse to the Federal Government.
The reports also claimed that the World Bank Group wrote to Nigeria requesting the Curriculum Vitaes of at least three economists to fill a vacant position as the AED.
But the letter, which was routed through the office of the Minister of Finance, was hidden away from the public, thereby denying the federal government valuable inputs into the nomination process.
Beyond her appointment, the Minister was said to have equally limited the selection of support staff that would work with her to her immediate aides at the Ministry of Finance.
When the former minister eventually assumes office, she would work with a South African, Ayanda Dlondlo, who is the Executive Director (EDS25) in the Office of the Executive Director known as Africa Group 3 Constituency, representing Angola, Nigeria and South Africa.
The Executive Directors are responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the 189 member countries of the World Bank to present a consensus on development issues, while an Alternate Executive Director has the full power to act for the World Bank in the absence of the substantive Director.
