By Emmanuel Nduka
Former Chief Executive of Credit Suisse and Prudential, Tidjane Thiam is considering running for President of the Ivory Coast.
This decision would require him to renounce his French citizenship, as the French-Ivorian banker is understood to have taken advice on the question of his dual citizenship in preparation to run for the country’s highest office in 2025.
Mr Thiam will likely have to resolve his citizenship status over the next two-and-a-half years if he is to run in the upcoming presidential election, as required by the Ivorian constitution which stipulates that presidential candidates must have been born in the country and are barred from holding a foreign passport.
The move would further bring Mr Thiam back into Ivorian politics more than two decades after he left the West African country’s cabinet following a coup, to pursue a career in finance.
During his time in France, he worked for McKinsey and Aviva, then took the role of chief executive of Prudential in 2009, becoming the first black boss of a FTSE 100 company.
He then left to run Credit Suisse six years later, and then in 2020, he was forced to resign over a corporate spying scandal, in which be denied wrongdoing.
Mr Thiam has since sold his Zürich home and is said to split his time between London and Paris – the latter being his primary residence.
Outside finance, he has also taken a keen interest in African politics, serving as a special envoy for the African Union, where he has helped the continent deal with the economic fallout from the Covid pandemic.
In August, Mr Thiam travelled to the Ivory Coast – his first such visit in over 20 years – for meetings and to visit family.
Upon his arrival in Abidjan, on August 8, Mr Thiam was received by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara at his home in the fashionable Cocody Riviera district.
The meeting lasted an hour and was attended by Mr Thiam’s elder brothers, the governor of Yamoussoukro, Augustin Thiam, and the minister of transport, Aziz Thiam.
Mr Thiam – who is the grandnephew of the Ivory Coast’s first president, and whose father was also an Ivorian politician – served under president Henri Konan Bédié between 1993 and 1999, before the government was toppled in a military coup.
He was abroad at the time and returned to the Ivory Coast, where he was placed under house arrest. The new military regime offered him a position as chief of staff, but Mr Thiam declined and was exiled.
A spokesman for Mr Thiam has said he maintains “regular and cordial contact” with former presidents Laurent Gbagbo and Mr Bédié. He met both men during his recent trip.
Mr Thiam throughout his career, frequently spoke of his feelings of guilt for living in a developed country, when he feels there is much he could do and contribute to his native Ivory Coast.
More recently, in December 2021, he batted off questions about his presidential ambitions in an interview with the magazine Jeune Afrique.
“I do what I can in my area of expertise, which is economics, to get things done. But I will answer your question – ask me again in 2025,” he said.
