By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Former Minister of Health, Prof Babatunde Osotimehin is dead.
He died in the early hours of Monday in London according to close sources.
Prof Osetimehin served as minister of Health between 17th December 2008 and March 2010.
One of his major achievements was the unification of the 36 states in the establishment of a national health plan that focused more on Primary health care.
The former minister was known for his courage and boldness. In a Press conference as a minister, he stated that Nigeria had yet to comply with the Abuja Declaration that 15% of the budget of each African country should be devoted to health care. He equally maintained that medical institutions were required by law to treat accident and gunshot victims and refusal to give treatment could be punished by a jail term.
Before his appointment as Minister of Health, Osotimehin was the Director-General of the Nigerian National Agency for the Control of AIDS, (NACA) between March 2007 and December 2008.
As chairman of NACA, he oversaw the development of systems that today manage more than US$1billion. The agency under his watch coordinated all HIV and AIDS work and achieved great success.
Prof Babatunde Osotimehin was born in February 1949 in Ogun State.
He attended Igbobi College between 1966 and 1971. He studied medicine in university of Ibadan, Nigeria before proceeding to University of Birmingham where he bagged doctorate degree also in medicine.
Osetimehin died at the age of 68.