Nigeria’s Former Health Minister, Osotimehin, Is Dead
Nigeria’s former Minister of Health and Executive Director of the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin, is dead.
According to family sources, Mr. Osotimehin, who left office as Health Minister in March 2010 when the then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan dissolved his cabinet, died in the early hours of Monday.
Appointed the fourth Executive Director of UNFPA on November 19, 2010 for a four-year term, Osotimehin was re-appointed to that position on August 21, 2014. He officially assumed that position on January 1, 2011 and held the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
He was the Chairman, National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA) between July 2002 and March 2007 where he superintended over the development of systems that managed more than US$1billion. Between March 2007 and December 2008, Osotimehin served as the pioneer Director-General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, an agency coordinating all HIV and AIDS works in the country
Appointed Minister of Health on December 17, 2008 by late President Musa YarÁdua, the 68-year-old professor of medicine, was also a former Provost, College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan.
Born on February 6, 1949 in Ogun State, he attended Igbobi College, Yaba in Lagos between 1966 and 1971. After his medical studies at University of Ibadan, he received a doctorate in medicine from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 1979.
