What You Need To know About Walter Carrington

A former United States ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, died on Tuesday, August 11, 2020, at the prime age of 90.

Naija News understands that the death of top diplomat was confirmed in a statement signed by his wife, Arese Carrington.

Many described the late American as a fearless diplomat because of the major roles he played in helping to enthrone democracy.

Below are important things to know about Walter Carrington:

1. He was born on July 24, 1930.

2. He was married to lovely Arese from Edo State.

3. Carrington was the American Ambassador to Nigeria between 1993 and 1997. He was appointed by then US President Bill Clinton.

4. He was also Ambassador to Senegal between 1980 and 1981.

5. Carrington graduated from Harvard Law School and enlisted in the US Army where one of his assignments was as an enlisted man with the Judge Advocate General Corps (Germany, 1955–57).

6. Carrington was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. In 1997, he received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Humane Letters) from Livingstone College, North Carolina.

7. In the United States of America, he teamed up with the struggle of the Coloured people. His doggedness saw him elected as a Director of the National Association of Coloured People, the first student to be so elected. At 27, he was made a Commissioner in Massachusetts, again, the youngest at the time.

8. On 1 September 2004, Carrington was named the Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College in Boston. In 2014, alongside his Nigeria-born wife, Arese, he was winner of the City of Lifetime Human Rights Award, a sort of crown on the lifelong struggle for human rights, with Arese, his partner.

9. Carrington was said to have also rallied the diplomatic corps against the regime’s abuse of human rights and brutalisation of Nigerians, especially critics and pro-democracy activists. He went beyond diplomatic limits in the engagement of the Abacha regime and struggle for military disengagement and enthronement of democratic government.

10. His books include a collection of the rich speeches and writings over the decades aptly titled, A duty to speak: Refusing to be silent in a time of tyranny, published in 2010. Another titled Africa in the minds and deeds of Black American Leaders was co-authored with Edwin Dorn.