The Nigerian ambassador to the United States of America, Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor is dead.

ThisDay reports that 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 graduated from London’s now-defunct Holborn College of Law in 1962.

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.