Nigerian ambassador to the United States of America, Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor is dead. Nsofor died on Thursday in Maryland hospital, Washington DC
Nigerian ambassador to the United States of America, Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor is dead.
Nsofor died on Thursday in Maryland hospital, Washington DC at the age of 85.
Nsofor, a retired justice of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal, assumed office as Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States on November 13, 2017.
He succeeded Prof. Adebowale Adefuye, who died towards the end of his tenure as Nigeria’s ambassador to the US.
Nsofor who graduated from London’s now-defunct Holburn College of Law in 1962.
Though there is no official statement, competent sources confirmed his death, according to Thisday.
Born on March 17, 1935, in Oguta, Imo State, Nigeria, Nsofor bagged an LL.M from the London School of Economics in 1964.
The late envoy began teaching at Holborn College of Law in 1964 and later went into private practice the following year.
He was appointed to the bench in Nigeria in 1977, and served as a judge of the Imo state High Court. Nsofor was a justice on the Court of Appeal of Nigeria for 13 years until his mandatory retirement in 2005.
Nsofor cast the dissenting vote in a three-justice panel in a contested 2003 presidential race between Muhammadu Buhari, who was presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
When President Buhari was elected President twelve years later, he appointed Nsofor as Nigeria’s ambassador to the US, a top and strategic foreign post. Nsofor was then 82.
His ambassadorial screening at the senate did not go without some drama as he refused to recite the national anthem when asked to do so by Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who was concerned about Nsofor’s age and fitness to serve.
“Go and ask Mugabe who is still working,” Nsofor replied senators when his age and fitness became an issue during the screening session.
His nomination was denied but President Buhari re-nominated him at the end of March of 2017.
However, earlier this year, in June precisely, his appointment and that of George Oguntade, the high commissioner to the United Kingdom, were not renewed.
