APC former women leader and Tinubu's ally, Kemi Nelson is dead

An All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Kemi Nelson has died.

Nelson was the former Southwest Women leader of the APC and a strong ally of the party's presidential flag-bearer in the 2023 election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

The 66-year-old politician was the only female member of the influential political group, Lagos Governance Advisory Council.

Gboyega Akosile, the Chief Press Secretary to Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, announced in a tweet that the APC chieftain died on Sunday.

“We lost a dear soul to the cold hands of death earlier today. May the soul of the late Chief Mrs. Kemi Nelson, former Southwest Women Leader of the @OfficialAPCNg.”

“Rest In Peace and may God grant her immediate family, friends and associates the fortitude to bear this loss,” Akosile tweeted on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a family source confirmed that Nelson had been unwell for a while and going to different hospitals to treat undisclosed ailments.

Mourning the passing of Nelson on Twitter, Jubril Gawat, the Senior Special Assistant on New Media to Sanwo-Olu, shared an old post that read, “The day I posted this, Our Big Mummy, Yeye Kemi Nelson called me and said, ‘I saw ur tweet and I replied, most pple don’t know how we suffered for Lagos to be what it is today’.

“I replied, ‘we will keep telling them ma’. I guess that was a stylish ‘Goodbye’. Goodnight Ma.”

The deceased was appointed as the Executive Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) by President Muhammadu Buhari, a position from which she was removed in May 2021 under unclear circumstances.

She was born on February 9, 1956, and schooled in Ijebu, Lagos and Ibadan; and was survived by her three children.