The dreaded novel coronavirus has claimed many people from all walks of life, both young and old, including that of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and his Guinean counterpart, Sékou Kourouma.
But last weekend’s passing away of the highly reserved but controversial Kyari was one death, too many among top African government functionaries who couldn’t survive the virus infection.
Daily Trust takes a look at some of the notable ones below:
- Abba Kyari (Nigeria)
Mallam Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, died on Friday, weeks after testing positive to the deadly coronavirus, the Presidency announced on Friday.
Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, in a statement, said Kyari had been receiving treatment for the COVID-19 infection before he passed away.
Kyari became the first senior public official in Nigeria to die after battling with the coronavirus.
He was buried on Saturday, according to Islamic rites, at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had said that as at 11:10pm, 20th April, there are 665 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria.
It stated that 188 had so far recovered, while it puts the total number of deaths from the COVID-19 for the country at 22.
Daily Trust reports that the late Kyari had left Abuja for Lagos on Sunday, March 29, 2020 to undergo additional tests and observation.
He had tested positive to COVID-19 after returning from an official visit to Germany.
In his last words to Nigerians before his death, Kyari said that he made his personal care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures.
“We should be calm, measured and diligent – be meticulous in your hygiene, especially with cleaning hands; if possible stay at home or keep your distance.
“Listen to good advice from the proper authorities: pay no heed to quack cures or fake news from social media. President Buhari will do whatever it takes to protect the health and safety of our people and get the country back on its feet as soon as possible,” he wrote in the letter titled, “Health Status of Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.”
- Sékou Kourouma (Guinea)
Guinea’s Secretary General of Government and a close friend of President Alpha Conde died from the coronavirus in Conakry on Saturday, April 18, the government said in a statement on Sunday.
Kourouma was until his death the secretary general of the government and a former minister.
This is coming less than 24-hours after the death of the head of Guinea’s electoral body, Amadou Salif Kebe, was announced on Friday, April 17. He also died of the virus.
“Several senior state officials (have died) as a result of complications related to COVID-19,” the statement read.
As of April 20, Guinea has officially reported 579 cases of coronavirus, with five people dead while 87 others have recovered from the viral disease, according to the country’s National Agency for Health Security.
President Conde had ordered the compulsory wearing of masks from April 18 as part of measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 etc.
- Jacques Joaquim Yhombi-Opango (Congo)
A former president of the Republic of Congo, Jacques Joaquim Yhombi-Opango, who was ill before contracting the coronavirus, died in a Paris hospital, his family revealed.
Born in 1939 in the country’s northern Cuvette region, Yhombi-Opango was an Army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.
He was president of Congo-Brazzaville from April 1977 until he was toppled in February 1979 by the current president, Denis Sassou Nguesso.
He had also served as Prime Minister between 1992 and 1997 under the government of Pascal Lissouba, until a civil war broke out that year. He lived in exile in France until his death, though he was allowed to return to his country home around 2007. Yhombi-Opango died on March 30, aged 81.
- Ms Rose Marie Campoare (Burkina Faso)
Ms. Compaore, a leading lawmaker and the first Vice President of the parliament in Burkina Faso, became the first recorded coronavirus death in West Africa on March 17, the country’s main opposition party, the Union for Progress and Change (UPC) said in a statement.
The authorities said she was a diabetic woman, aged 62 years.
“This tragic event calls us all to recognise the scale and seriousness of the problem which confronts us all. This is a very contagious illness that is potentially fatal and that for now has no treatment aside from prevention,” said Martial Ouedraogo, the Burkina Faso’s COVID-19 response coordinator.
- Victor Traore (Guinea)
Victor Traore, a former director of Interpol in Guinea, died on April 16, 2020, at Donka National Hospital, Conakry, where he had spent about two weeks for treatment.
Sources said the former police chief reportedly died of COVID-19, though a family member of the deceased said he knew nothing specific about the cause of his death.
“I can confirm that my uncle Victor died today in Donka where he had been admitted for about 2 weeks.
“On the cause of his death, I can’t tell you if it’s due to COVID-19 or not. Me, I don’t live with them. In any case, soon after his death, they asked everyone out of the house. They completely emptied the home; No one’s accessing it yet,” he said.
But the country’s health agency neither confirmed nor refuted reports that Traore died of COVID-19.
- Major Generals Shafie Abdel Halim Dawoud and Khaled Shaltout (Egypt)
Two senior Egyptian military officials died in less than 24-hours apart from the coronavirus infection, State newspaper Al-Ahram said.
The State television said that Major General Shafie Abdel Halim Dawoud “died while fighting the coronavirus”, on March 23, without giving any detail.
Also, State media had announced on Sunday, March 22 that Major General Khaled Shaltout had died for the same reason.
- Amadou Salif Kebe (Guinea)
The head of Guinea’s electoral body, Amadou Salif Kebe, died of the coronavirus on April 17, 2020, said the French online news portal, Jeune Afrique.
The nation’s Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), had in a statement, also confirmed Kebe’s death though it did not mention the cause of his death.
The Jeune Afrique report, however, cites persons close to the deceased confirming that he died of the virus.
- Mukendi wa Mulumba, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Jean-Joseph Mukendi wa Mulumba, the acting head of the Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi’s legal advisory council died on March 24 in the capital, Kinshasa – thus becoming the third person known to have died from the virus in the country.
The celebrated lawyer, who is well known for championing human rights causes in his country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, reportedly contracted the coronavirus while in France for a medical check-up shortly before his death.
Many of the country’s human rights and pro-democracy activists, as well as former members of the political opposition, have eulogised how Mukendi fearlessly defended them when they were thrown behind bars during then-President Joseph Kabila’s final years in office.
At the height of the political repression, Mukendi successfully represented Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala of the youth movement Struggle for Change (Lutte pour le Changement, LUCHA) at the Supreme Court of Justice, securing their release after 18 months in prison, among others.
- Nur Hassan Hussein – aka Nur Adde (Somalia)
Nur Hassan Hussein, popularly known as Nur Adde, who was Somalia’s Prime Minister at its crucial transitional period plagued by insurgency and humanitarian crises, died on April 1 in London at the age of 82.
His family said his death came after he had contracted the coronavirus, despite the fact that he had been treated at the London’s King’s College Hospital for over two weeks.
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, on Feb. 2, 1938, he had studied law in both Somalia and Italy. He was a police officer, trained lawyer, and a one-time attorney general under the tenure of President Siad Barre who was overthrown in 1991.
Nur Adde was the nation’s prime minister between November 2007 and February 2009. Many Somalis united on Twitter to pay glowing tribute to him.
“We extend our most profound condolences to the Somali people, friends and bereaved family of Somalia’s former Prime Minister, HE Nur Hassan Hussein who passed away in London, UK,” current Somali PM, Hassan Ali Khayre, posted on Twitter.
- Kahlif Mumin (Somalia)
Khalif Mumin, a top official of the Hirshabelle region of Somalia and Minister of State for Justice, was the second COVID-19 related death recorded in the Horn of Africa nation, following that of Nur Adde.
He died on Sunday, April 12, at Maritini Hospital in the capital Mogadishu – Somalia’s only coronavirus treatment centre, after contracting the virus two days earlier.
Media reports said the country only recently achieved testing capacity as samples were usually sent to Nairobi, Kenya for confirmation before now.
- Mahmoud Jibril (Libya)
Mahmoud Jibril, a former Prime Minister and the interim leader of Egypt until the country held its first free elections in 2012 following the removal of Muammar Gaddafi, died of the coronavirus in an Egyptian hospital, his party confirmed on April 5.
He was the former head of the rebel government that overthrew ex-Libyan leader, Gaddafi in 2011, few weeks after the outbreak of the Arab Spring uprising in Libya.
The 68-year-old Jibril was in Cairo where he had been hospitalised for two weeks, said Khaled al-Mrimi, secretary of the Alliance of National Forces party founded by Jibril in 2012.
Media reports said he was admitted to the hospital on March 21 after suffering a heart attack, before testing positive for the new coronavirus. He died from complications arising from his health condition, which was aggravated by the COVID-19.
