Prof Tam David-West, Dies; Buhari Mourns Ardent Supporter

By Gideon Njoku

He had been quiet for months. And everybody wondered why. A man who called a spade by no other name but a spade, Professor Tam David-West, loved controversy, and revelled in it.

Finally, the reason for his unusual silence in the face of burning national issues was laid to rest Monday afternoon.

The renowned Consultant Professor of Virology had been ill. He  passed on, aged 83,  on Monday, in a private suite at the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital, UCH.

A native of Buguma, Rivers State, David-West took pride in his self-apportioned services to the nation. His best, which he never forgot,  was his stint as Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, under then Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, now Nigeria’s President in a democratic setting.

David West lost the plum Ministry when Buhari was overthrown in a palace coup by then Major General Ibrahim Babangida.

Babangida reassigned him to the Ministry of Mines and Steel.

His worst  period was when he was jailed by the Babangida regime for accepting a cup of tea and a gold wrist watch from a foreign company.

He was set free by an Appeal Court after spending months in Bama prisons.

For reassigning him from the Petroleum Ministry, and jailing him, there was no love lost between Babangida and David-West.

His relationship with Buhari was quite different. He not only loved Buhari, but absolutely believed in him and his alleged incorruptibilty.

During the 2015 Presidential election, he backed Buhari against his kinsman, then President Goodluck Jonathan, saying he was prepared to go to war blind-folded with Buhari in command. He also made a couple of promises on behalf of Buhari during the campaigns, the most popular: The price of petrol would come down to N40 per litre in a Buhari government. He was ,also, fiercely against oil subsidy,  dismissing it as fraud.

David-West must have been disappointed that subsidy was not scrapped before his passing.

In mourning David-West, President Buhari praised the “indomitable spirit of my friend, ally, and an academic of national and international repute”.

David-West was also a Commissioner for Education in the old Rivers State.

At the time of going to press, there were no details of the cause of his death.