Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States of America, Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, is dead.

According to a source in the US, the historian was reported to have died in a yet to be disclosed hospital in Washington DC.

Reports has it that Adefuye was recalled to Nigeria after President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as president, and was still waiting to hand over to a new ambassador when he suddenly died.

Adefuye, a former professor of history, was in 2010 appointed by former president, Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s ambassador to the US, and as an outspoken person and fierce defender of Nigeria, the deceased diplomat tackled critics of Nigeria in the US.

He vociferously lobbied against Nigeria’s classification as “a country of interest” in America’s terrorism watch list.

A report also disclosed that the late diplomat, who studied at the University of Ibadan where he earned his first degree in 1969 as well as a PhD in history in 1973, was an indigene of Ijebu in Ogun state.

Adefuye was also awarded with Fulbright Fellowship, a feat which enabled him do research work at Columbia University, the University of North Florida and the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Before his demise, he wrote several history texts, lectured at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and became a professor before heading the history department 1985 to 1987.

Adefuye had served as Nigeria’s ambassador to Jamaica (where he was concurrently accredited to Haiti and Belize) from 1987 to 1991 and was also appointed Nigeria’s Deputy High Commissioner in the UK from where he left to work as a Deputy Director at the Commonwealth for fourteen years.