The Chief Press Secretary to Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, disclosed her death in a tweet 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,” Gboyega Akosile tweeted.
“Rest In Peace and may God grant her immediate family, friends and associates the fortitude to bear this loss.”
Kemi, who died at 66 years, was an ally of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu who is also a former governor of Lagos State.
Sanwo-Olu’s Senior Special Assistant on New Media, Jubril Gawat, also mourned her on Twitter.
Sharing an old post, Gawat said, “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.”
Reacting to the demise, President Muhammadu Buhari commiserated with Tinubu, the Government and the people of Lagos State on the loss.
He also condoled Lagos APC and the Nelson family on the loss of “a consistent and faithful party member who devoted so much to the evolution, development, sustenance and relevance of the party in Lagos and around the country.”
Buhari in a statement on Sunday by his media aide, Garba Shehu, said the deceased served as a former Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Lagos State, the State Women Leader, National Deputy Women Leader of APC, and former Executive Director of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund, remarking that she was such a grassroots mobiliser and an achiever who left her footprints wherever she served.
“As the only female member of the Lagos State Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC), Kemi Nelson continued to be part of the governance structure that led to the transformation of Lagos State into the Centre of Excellence it has become,” the President was quoted as saying.
The President prayed that almighty God will grant the husband, Adeyemi Nelson and the family, friends and associates of the deceased, the fortitude to bear the loss and repose her soul.