Akinwunmi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), has rejected claims linking him to the 2027 Nigerian presidential race. This follows reports stemming from a recent interview in which it was suggested that he might be considering a bid for president.
Adesina, however, clarified that he never expressed any intention to run for the presidency. In a post on his X handle, he explained that his remarks during the interview had been misunderstood and misreported by several Nigerian media outlets.
“A segment of my recent interview has been both misinterpreted and misrepresented in several Nigerian media outlets. What I said was, ‘I will be available to serve in any capacity, globally, in Africa, anywhere, including my own country,’” Adesina stated.
He urged the public to listen to the full interview, available online, to understand his true statement. “For clarity and for the record, I did not say that I am running for the office of President of Nigeria,” he added.
This is not the first time Adesina has addressed such rumours. Ahead of the 2023 elections, he also publicly distanced himself from presidential aspirations, releasing a statement to confirm he was not running. Adesina, whose tenure as AfDB president ends in May 2025, previously served as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture under President Goodluck Jonathan and was first elected AfDB president in 2015, later being reelected in 2020.
