*Nigerians express Shock at how 2 envoys suddenly die at tail end of their postings...
Nigerian Ambassador to the United States of America, Justice Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor, is dead. He died suddenly on Thursday night at the age of 85.
A retired justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice Sylvanus Nsofor took office as Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States of America on November 13, 2017, succeeding the late Prof Adebowale Adefuye, a prolific academic and top-notch diplomat.
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The New Diplomat’s checks reveal that Justice Nsofor died on Thursday night. Although, the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC has not issued an official statement to that effect, diplomatic sources confided in The New Diplomat that the late envoy died as a result of sickness associated with old age.
Recall that Nsofor succeeded the cerebral Prof. Adefuye, who also curiously died in office at the tail end of his diplomatic mission as Nigeria’s envoy to the United States.
The late Justice Nsofor was born on March 17, 1935, in Oguta, present day Imo State. He graduated from London’s Holborn College of Law in 1962 and proceeded to bag his LL.M degree from the London School of Economics in 1964.
Prior to his return to Nigeria, the late envoy was a lecturer at Holborn College of Law in 1964. He later went into private practice as a legal practitioner upon his return to Nigerai in 1965.
The late diplomat and jurist was elevated to the bench in Nigeria in 1977, and thereafter held the following positions among others; Judge of the Imo state High Court; Judge at the Court of Appeal for an uninterrupted thirteen years, from where he later retired.
In 2003, Justice Nsofor was the lone voice who stood up to cast the dissenting vote in a decisive three-man judicial panel in the then disputed 2003 presidential contest between General Muhammadu Buhari, as the then candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and President Olusegun Obasanjo, the then candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), respectively. His dissenting vote was in support of ANPP and Buhari.
Upon President Buhari’s election as president and subsequent assumption of office, Justice Nsofor was named Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States at the age of 82.
His screening at the upper legislative chambers was fraught with some contentious exchanges when some Senators sought to bring up the issue of his old age as a likely factor that could affect his performance .
“Go and ask Mugabe who is still working,” Nsofor had fired back at senators when that age matter came up.
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