The Nigeria’s outgoing Ambassador to the United States, Justice Sylvanus Nsofor is dead.
According to reports, the 85-Year-Old diplomat was said to have died on Thursday night at a hospital in Maryland in the US.
His death was confirmed in a statement on Friday by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu.
In his reaction, President Muhammadu Buhari commiserated with the family, friends, and associates of the late Nigerian envoy.
According to Shehu, the President also called Mrs Jane, the widow of the retired justice in New York on Friday to sympathise with her over the loss of her husband.
President Buhari described Ambassador Nsofor as “an outstanding judge of rare courage and truth who is not afraid to give justice to whom justice is due”.
Referring to the 2003 presidential election during which Justice Nsofor delivered a minority judgment as a member of the Election Appeal Panel in favour of Buhari as the candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the President said the country would miss people with such exemplary pedigree.
He, therefore, directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work with Justice Nsofor’s family on the burial arrangements.
The President also prayed to God to comfort all who mourn the late jurist and grant his soul eternal rest.
A retired justice of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal, Nsofor assumed office as Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States on November 13, 2017.
The envoy succeeded Prof. Adebowale Adefuye, who also died towards the end of his tenure as Nigeria’s ambassador to US.
Born on March 17, 1935, in Oguta, Imo State, Nigeria, Nsofor graduated from London’s now-defunct Holborn College of Law in 1962. He also 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.
Nsofor’s nomination was denied but President Buhari re-nominated him at the end of March of 2017.
After another appearance before the senate, he was confirmed to as ambassador on June 7.
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