Buhari Mourns Ex-UN Chief, Adebayo Adedeji’s Death At 87

Prof Adebayo Adedeji, former UN chief, dies at 87

Prof Adebayo Adedeji, Former UN Chief, Dies At 87

The Pioneer Executive Director of the Addis Ababa based United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Prof Adebayo Adedeji, is dead.

Prof Adedeji, who died in Lagos at the prime age of 87 after a protracted illness was Nigeria’s post-civil-war federal commissioner for economic development and reconstruction, from 1971.

Naija News learnt that his death, in the late hours of Wednesday, was announced by a family member who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria.

Reacting to his demise, President Muhammadu Buhari said he learnt with sadness the death of Adedeji, who he described as “A patriotic Nigerian, economist, administrator, scholar and international statesman.”

In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President noted that Adedeji was best known and respected across the continent for the achievements recorded during his tenure as the United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the ECA.

He noted that the deceased used his leadership of the pan-African institution to promote African development and was in the vanguard of intellectual efforts to find solutions to Africa’s developmental challenges from within the continent.

Buhari said, “Africa remains grateful to him for the intellectual effort to challenge and reverse the damaging Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed on the continent by conceiving the African Alternative Framework for Structural Adjustment Programmes.

“It is noteworthy that Prof. Adedeji was one of the first people to realise, as far back as the early 1980s, that environment, gender, and governance, which have now become commonplace in development discourse, were important for sustainable development in Africa.