By Our Reporter
Abuja (Precise Post) – The Secretary to government of the federation (SGF) and chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha yesterday said that member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Femi Odekunle, is dead.
He died at the COVID-19 isolation centre in Gwagalada, Abuja yesterday evening.
PCAC is headed by Itse Sagay, a professor of law.
Announcing the death at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19 yesterday, Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation said, “A good friend of this government just passed on at 6:30pm”.
It is unclear if Mustapha was referring to Odekunle or another person but he said discussions were ongoing to help the deceased hours before news of his death broke.
Nigeria is currently experiencing the second wave of the pandemic.
Within the past two weeks, the daily count of COVID-19 cases recorded a significant rise — increasing to more than 1,000 cases within a 24-hour period.
In July, Odekunle made the headlines when he kicked against the arrest of Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He had described Magu’s ordeal as a power play by blocs in the corridor of power.
Odekunle had alleged that Abubakar Malami, minister of justice, is the arrowhead of the bloc that is not really interested in President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight.
A graduate of the University of Ibadan, 1968, he got his PhD in Sociology and Social Psychiatry from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in the United States, in 1974.
Acknowledged as the first professor of Criminology in Nigeria, Odekunle lectured in different universities.
Precise Post recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari described Professor Odekunle as a valued friend and a towering intellectual giant with an impeccable knowledge of his chosen academic field, criminology and in such others as governance and administration.
