Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is dead.
Osotimehin was a one-time Nigeria’s Minister of Health reportedly died in the early hours of Monday, He died at the age of 68.
His deaths has been confirmed by family and UNFPA sources.
A two paragraph statement issued on Monday by Dr. Babajide Osotimehi on behalf of the family, said the UNFPA’s boss died on Sunday.
before he became health minister, Osotimehin, was the Director General of National Agency for Control of AIDS (NACA) and was also a former Provost of the College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan.
He became the CEO of UNFPA on 19th November 2010 to serve a four-year term and was re-appointed on 21st August 2014.
He was borne on 6th February 1949.
According to ranking, he holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Late Osotimehin attended Igbobi College 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.
In May 2017, the late Ex-Health Minister had lamented the high rate of maternal mortality due to the neglect by government to take health, especially that of pregnant women and their babies seriously.
He had said that ” In my present job, it’s painful for me to hear, see women die during childbirth.”
He had said that it was no longer acceptable for a woman to die during childbirth, therefor would be a painful experience for him considering his status in the medical line to see or hear women die during childbirth.
The late UNFPA chief had also said that people should insist that both local and state governments must deliver healthcare to them.
He had added that if people failed to hold government accountable as far as healthcare is concerned, the nation’s health problems would continue to persist.
In his words: “In the present job I have, it is very painful for me that I would hear and I would see women die during childbirth, as minister and as a doctor.
“I have seen women die needlessly because they don’t have care and because they don’t get care.
“So a woman who is in labour goes into a care centre and she bleeds to death. This is totally unacceptable.
“Those are things that in present day world must not occur at all. These are not things we cannot prevent.
“We cannot and should not ever leave everything to the hands of the government,” he said.
Sadly enough, the good health for pregnant mothers’ advocate died on Monday.
