Kashamu mourns Osotimehin

The Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Prince Buruji Kashamu has expressed sadness over the death of Nigeria's former Minister of Health and Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin.

In a statement he issued today (Tuesday), Kashamu described Osotimehin as a thoroughbred professional, a gentleman and a great physician who was passionate about child and maternal mortality issues.

Recalling his days as the Minister of Health, Kashamu said: "He demonstrated an uncommon commitment to his job by working assiduously towards raising the bar and ensuring qualitative health care services to Nigerians in both the private and public hospitals."

He added that: "Ijebu Igbo, Ogun East Senatorial District, Ogun State, Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world has lost a role model and an exemplary medic. Prof. Osotimehin shall forever live in our hearts.

“On behalf of our community in Ijebu Igbo (Prof. Osotimehin and Senator Kashamu hail from the same town), the good people of Ogun East Senatorial District, I hereby express my heartfelt condolences to members of his immediate family, the management and staff of UNFPA, and the Government and people of Nigeria, on this great loss."

Prof. Osotimehin, the former Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), passed on in his home in New York on Sunday, June 4, 2017. He was 68 years old.