Former prime minister of Togo, Edem Kodjo is dead.

A former prime minister of Togo, Edem Kodjo, has passed on.

He died on Saturday in Paris at the age of 82.

Mr Kodjo served as prime minister from 1994 to 1996 and from 2005 to 2006, underneath the management of a former president, Gnassingbe Eyadema.

Prior to his function as top minister, he held a wide variety of ministerial positions.

In Mr Eyadema’s government, he served as minister of finance from 1973 to 1976 and as minister of foreign affairs from 1976 to 1978. At the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Khartoum in 1978, Mr Kodjo was once elected as the Secretary-General.

As the authorities and humans of Togo mourn the loss of life of the former top minister, the African Union chairperson, Moussa Mahamat, condoled with the household of the deceased and Togolese people. He described the deceased as “a unusual statesman and tireless knight of peace.”

He added that his death was once “painful” and concluded “may his soul rest in peace and can also his instance proceed to encourage the continent.”

The President of Namibia, Hage Geingob, and Malian President Ibrahim Keita additionally condoled with the household of the deceased and his nation.

Mr Geingob stated “with the passing of Edem Kodjo, Africa has lost an illustrious former SG of the OAU, a former Prime Minister of Togo and a sophisticated intellectual. A towering Pan-Africanist who contributed immensely to a peaceable and higher Africa is no more. Condolences to the humans of Togo. RIP.”

The former high minister after serving as OAU chief, returned to France to proceed his academic interests at the University of Sorbonne. He used to be named with the aid of the African Union as an envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo for the duration of the electoral crises in the late years of Joseph Kabila’s mandate.