Hamed Bakayoko (1965-2021) Former Defense Minister of Ivory Coast

Hamed Bakayoko (1965-2021) Former Defense Minister of Ivory Coast
Hamed Bakayoko
Birth 8 Mar 1965
Abidjan, Lagunes, Côte d’Ivoire
Death 10 Mar 2021 (aged 56)
Freiburg im Breisgau, Stadtkreis Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Burial Details Unknown
Ivorian Statesman

He served as the Prime Minister of Cote d’Ivoire from July 8, 2020 to his passing on March 10, 2021. He abandoned medical school to launch Le Patriote newspaper in the early 1990s, enabling him to build ties with various actors on the Ivorian political scene.

His move to head the Ivory Coast subsidiary of French Radio Nostalgie in 1993 opened the media world to him and he later rose to become the head of the radio’s African operations in 2000.

In 2003, he was appointed minister of telecommunications and new technologies, a position he held until a disputed presidential election in 2010 led to a brief civil war after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept the results.

After the war ended, he went on to hold several political posts before becoming acting prime minister in May of 2020 under President Alassane Ouattara, due to the illness of Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly. Coulibaly resumed his position on July 2, but passed away several days later

. He took over the prime ministership after Coulibaly’s passing and remained in the position until March 8, 2021 when he went to Germany for cancer treatment. He succumbed to his illness two days later.