Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has died at a hospital in the Swiss capital, Bern, after a brief illness. Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He reportedly fell ill while on a trip to South Africa. He was 80 years old. He was the first secretary general from sub-Saharan Africa. He led the United Nations through the divisive years of the Iraq war.
Flags outside UN Headquarters and around the world have been lowered to half-mast for 3 days in honour of our former Secretary-General
Koffi Annan's Profile:
Koffi Annan was from a prominent Ghanaian from Kumasi, the second biggest city in Ghana. His father was governor of Ashanti province under British colonial rule.
Personal Life:
In 1965, Kofi Annan married Titi Alakija, a Nigerian woman from an aristocratic family. Several years later they had a daughter, Ama, and later a son, Kojo. The couple separated in the late 1970s, and divorced in 1983. In 1984, Annan married Nane Maria Lagergren, a Swedish lawyer at the UN and a maternal half-niece of Raoul Wallenberg. She has a daughter, Nina, from a previous marriage.
Achievements Awards, Honors & Other Activities:
Koffi Annan held multiple honorary awards from many Universities ( more than 20), was board of directors for several corporate boards and non profits. He was also the Chancellor of University of Ghana (2008-2018). He also received multiple awards, and honors from various organizations, and governments all over the World.
Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo announced that the national flag will fly at half-mast at home and in the country's diplomatic missions across the world for one week in honor of "one of greatest compatriots."
Statement from Koffi Annan Foundation:
"It is with immense sadness that the Annan family and the Kofi Annan Foundation announce that Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Laureate, passed away peacefully on Saturday 18th August after a short illness," the foundation said in a statement.
"His wife Nane and their children Ama, Kojo and Nina were by his side during his last days."
Current UN chief Antonio Guterres also expressed great sadness at the news, describing his predecessor as "a guiding force for good".
"In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations," he said.
"He rose through the ranks to lead the organization into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination.
"Like so many, I was proud to call Kofi Annan a good friend and mentor."
The UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said he was grief-stricken.
"Kofi was humanity's best example, the epitome, of human decency and grace. In a world now filled with leaders who are anything but that, our loss, the world's loss becomes even more painful," he said.
"He was a friend to thousands and a leader of millions."
Raila Odinga, Kenyan opposition leader and former prime minister, said on privately-owned Citizen TV: “We didn’t expect Kofi to pass that abruptly. Kofi Annan is a man of integrity; a great African, a great leader of the world.”
"Kofi worked unceasingly to improve the lives of millions of people around the world. While we mourn his passing today, we resolve as Elders to continue to uphold his values and legacy into the future," deputy chair of the group Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister and former head of the World Health Organization, said in the statement.
"His warmth should never be mistaken for weakness. Annan showed that one can be a great humanitarian and a strong leader at the same time," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, another former Norwegian prime minister, said in a statement.
"The UN and the world have lost one of their giants," he said.
Career:
Kofi was a career diplomat who projected quiet charisma. Annan joined the UN at the age of 24, first working as an administrator at the World Health Organization and then becoming head of personnel for the UN mission in Cairo, deputy director of the UNHCR in Geneva and eventually deputy UN secretary-general. In 1993, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali nominated him under-secretary-general for peacekeeping, putting him in charge of 75,000 peacekeepers around the world.
In 1996, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali ran unopposed for a second term. Although he won 14 of the 15 votes on the Security Council, he was vetoed by the United States. After four deadlocked meetings of the Security Council, Boutros-Ghali suspended his candidacy, becoming the only Secretary-General ever to be denied a second term. Annan was the leading candidate to replace him, beating Amara Essy by one vote in the first round. However, France vetoed Annan four times before finally abstaining. The UN Security Council recommended Annan on 13 December 1996. Confirmed four days later by the vote of the General Assembly, he started his first term as Secretary-General on 1 January 1997.
As the head of UN peacekeeping troops, Annan experienced the first real dent in his career in 1994 when radical Hutu militias killed over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the horrible Rwandan Genocide. Annan was accused of failing to provide adequate support in the east African country despite the prior warnings of a violent escalation by Romeo Dallaire, the head of the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda. His reluctance was partly due to the fact that the US and Europe seemed to have little interest in getting more involved in Rwanda.
Annan expressed regret on behalf of the UN 10 years later: "The international community failed Rwanda, and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret and abiding sorrow."
He was then elected secretary-general in December 1997, after some pressure from the US, and thus became the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to occupy the post.
Peace Negotiator:
He also acted as a negotiator between the government and the opposition in Kenya after post-election violence broke out at the end of 2007. In February 2012, he was named special representative in the Syrian civil war. He stepped down six months later after several failed attempts to negotiate a ceasefire.
Later, as violence against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine state grew in 2017, Annan headed an expert commission that looked into how the conflict could be resolved.
Kofi Annan is survived by his second wife, Nane Lagergren, with whom he lived in Geneva, and a son and daughter from his first marriage. After serving his two terms as UN secretary-general in New York Koffi retired to live in a Swiss village in the Geneva countryside.
Memoir:
Famous Koffi Annan Quotes:
1) Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.
2) It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.
3) To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.
4) Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.
5) More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.
6) There is no development strategy more beneficial to society as a whole - women and men alike - than the one which involves women as central players.
7) Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.
8) The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone.
9) We need to keep hope alive and strive to do better.
10) If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are conditions for development.
Africa Team
Wikipedia