Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States, Prof. Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, is dead.
He was said to have died in a Washington DC hospital in the US where he had gone for a routine check up on Thursday.
Adefuye was appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s ambassador to the US in 2010.
He was born in Ijebu-Igbo, in 1947, he received his First Degree in History at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1969, and in 1973 earned a Ph.D. in History there, with a dissertation on “The Political History of the Palwo, 1400-1911.” As a Fulbright scholar he studied at Columbia University, the University of North Florida and the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Adefuye started his academic career as a Lecturer at the University of Lagos, where he rose to the position of Professor, published books and articles, and served as Head of the History Department from 1985 to 1987.
He was one time ambassador to Jamaica, with concurrent accreditation to Haiti and Belize, a job he kept from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 to 1994, he served as Deputy High Commissioner at the Nigerian Embassy in London, U.K., when he was hired by the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth of Nations) as Deputy Director of Strategic Planning.
After fourteen years with the Commonwealth, Adefuye took a job with the Economic Community of West African States, where he served as an Advisor for two years, from 2008 to 2010. He became the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States in 2010.
Since March 2010, Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye a former history professor has been the ambassador from Nigeria to the United States, who has helped persuade the U.S. to remove this country from the government’s “country of interest” terrorism watch list.
Nigeria was placed on the list following the December 25, 2009, incident when Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight headed from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Prior to his appointment to Nigeria’s Embassy in Washington, DC, Adefuye served as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Jamaica (where he was concurrently accredited to Haiti and Belize) from 1987 to 1991.
In 1991, he was appointed Nigeria’s Deputy High Commissioner in the UK.
When President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, he recalled Adefuye to Nigeria. Adefuye was yet to be told his new role in the government and another Ambassador yet to be appointed to the US until his death.
As at the time of his sudden death, embassy officials and Nigerians in the US were planning a send-forth party for the diplomat scheduled for next Wednesday.
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