Former U.N. Under-Secretary General, Adedeji is dead

The former Federal Commissioner for Economic Development and Reconstruction, Professor Adebayo Adedeji, is dead.

Adedeji, 87, who was also the former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), passed on Wednesday, April 25, 2018, after a brief illness.

He was appointed United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the ECA, Addis Ababa, in June 1975 and was promoted to the rank of United Nations Under-Secretary-General in January 1978, a position he held successfully until July 1991 when he resigned to return to Nigeria after 16 years of international service.

He was a founding member of the 2005 Africa Forum of Former Heads of State and Heads of International Organisations. He was also Chairperson of the African Peer Review Mechanism’s Panel of Eminent Persons (APRM), established under the auspices of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development and designed to embrace all stakeholders, including government, civil society organisations and the private sector, thereby engaging the polity in a permanent dialogue on good governance.

In 2010, after turning 80, the late Adedeji retired from public life and spent his last years quietly in his hometown of Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.

He is survived by children and grandchildren.