Tributes flow as Chiedu Osakwe, Nigeria’s chief trade negotiator, passes on at 64

Chiedu Osakwe, director-general of the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiation (NOTN), has died after a brief illness at the age of 64.

According to a statement by Emenike Chibuzor, NOTN’s head of strategy and communications, Osakwe died on Sunday, September 22, in Geneva, Switzerland where he was receiving treatment.

Chibuzor stated that the ambassador, who was appointed as NOTN’s pioneer director-general on June 6, 2017, was the trade adviser to the Nigerian economic management team (EMT).

Osakwe was said to have been a member of the Nigerian Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council and of its Trade and Market Access Sub-Committee and its Advisory Group on Technology and Creativity.

Chibuzor also said the deceased served as the chairman of the negotiating forum (NF) and senior trade officials (STOs) for the negotiations on the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA).

Chibuzo said Osakwe led the AfCFTA negotiating institutions to finalise stage one of the AfCFTA negotiations (on trade in goods and services), for signature by African heads of state and government.

Before his appointment as Nigeria’s chief trade negotiator, he was an associate professor on international trade policy, diplomacy and negotiations (on a leave of absence) at the International University in Geneva.

He joined Nigeria’s foreign service on July 23, 1979, after his NYSC and served in various capacities till May 4, 1998.

At the permanent mission in New York, he was chairman of the UN sub-committee on the legal aspects of the struggle against Apartheid from 1984 to 1986.