By Thompson ABISOLA
The African Development Bank has learned with deep sadness the news of the death of Kofi A. Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and Noble Peace Prize Laureate, at the age of 80 in Bern, Switzerland.
“With Mr. Kofi Annan’s passing, Africa and the entire world has lost its finest diplomat, champion of world peace and development advocate, leaving a void which will be hard to fill,” President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina said.
“Today, the international community is mourning a man of great humility and righteousness; a formidable architect behind critical peace brokering agreements around the world. His leadership, spearheading the Millennium Development Goals, made poverty eradication an achievable global imperative.
He touched the lives of everyone he met with his dignity and quiet resolve. We stand with his dear wife, Nane, family and friends at this time and express our heartfelt condolences”, Adesina added.
For the African Development Bank, Mr. Kofi Annan held a special place on several of the Bank’s initiatives.
He was a staunch advocate of the Bank’s ‘New Deal on Energy for Africa’, a partnership-driven effort which aims to achieve universal access to energy in Africa by 2025.
He was appointed as the “Champion” of the New Deal on Energy for Africa. In 2016, Mr. Annan co-chaired the Special Panel on Accelerating the Implementation of the African Development Bank’s Ten Year Strategy, launched by Adesina.
He spearheaded several initiatives on Africa, including his chairmanship of the Africa Progress Panel and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
In April 2001, in Abuja, Nigeria, at a summit of African leaders, Mr. Kofi Annan made the first explicit public call for a new funding mechanism, proposing the creation of The Global Fund, to be dedicated to the battle against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.
He made the first contribution to the Global Fund in 2001.
Also the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has described the death of former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on Saturday as sad. Onyeama said this in his twitter handle @GeoffreyOnyeama, accessed by TBI Africa on Saturday in Abuja
He prayed that the Almighty God would comfort his family and all his loved ones. It’s very sad to learn of the passing on of Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General. His family is in our thoughts and prayers,” he said.
In the same vein, Senior Special Adviser to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, also mourned late Annan.
Dabiri -Erewa in a message obtained in Abuja sympathised with the family of the late former UN Secretary General. “We are grateful to God for his life and achievements both at the global stage and in our continent. The world will never forget him for his great works on peace for humanity.
“He stood up wisely and bravely to great global powers, particularly perennial violators of human rights. And for his gentle but audacious advocacy and empowerment of all people, particularly the youth all over the world,” she said.
Also the immediate past permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Olusola Enikanolaiye, said in statement that Africa had lost an icon in the person of Dr Kofi Atta Annan.
The ex-diplomat said he received the news of the passing on of Annan, with shock and sadness, his ripe age notwithstanding.
”Dr Annan was an outstanding soft-spoken and deft internationalist whose vision of international relations in the post-Cold War era led to the reinvigoration of the global body at a time of weaning relevance and influence.
”He spent most of his years at the UN in the Peace-keeping Department, which he headed before being elected the first Black Secretary General of the UN in 1997.
”It is to his credit that his astute diplomatic skills, post retirement, helped a great deal in mediating the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, having played similar roles as Secretary General in other trouble spots in Africa such as Sierra Leone and beyond.
He however, lamented how Annan cajoled President Olusegun Obasanjo into signing an agreement to cede Bakkasi Peninsula to Cameroon.
”Many in Nigeria would not forget in a hurry how Annan cajoled President Olusegun Obasanjo in November 2002 in Geneva to sign and agree to the acceptance and implementation of the judgement of the International Court of Justice over the disputed Bakassi Peninsula whatever the outcome of the case.
”That was how the judgment became a fait accompli, without adequate safeguards and guarantees of their future in Nigeria thereby leaving them in their present pitiable conditions of quandary.
”Analysts would continue to wonder how the Geneva meeting with President Paul Biya of Cameroon came about,” he said.
