Respect the office of the President and retrace your step (Part 1) I am absolutely disappointed by Professor Tam David West who had been feeding Nigerians and the outside world with mushroom criticisms against private individuals and the Federal Government of Nigeria without postulating any realistic solution to address the issues on ground.
In my opinion, Tam David West should concentrate on how to improve the health and hygiene of Nigerians as a Professor of Virology instead of scrambling for hilltop appointments through the back door. That is, threatening the government with self centred experience and common place intellectual discourses on contemporary social problems known by every Tom Dick and Aries.
The Professor is in expert position to inform the world why Nigerians are backward in science and technology. The reason is close by.
Academics like Tam David West can only be justified within the theoretical perspective of their elected disciplines.
They had no preliminary or essential ideas about the practical or technological aspect of what they read. This premise is it that formed the basis of a sound and resourceful career in the life of every scholar. Theory without practice is said to be the worst form of education in this part of the world.
Nigerians are infants in respect of scientific and technological development. The blame should be given to the likes of Tam David West.
They should be held responsible for this ugly and backward trend.
I honestly believe that Tam David West is an authority in the study of Pathology, Bacteriology and Virology. He earned a BSc degree at Michigan State University (1958- 1960), an MSc degree at Yale University (1960-1962), and a PHD degree at McGill University (1964-1966). David West was consultant Virologist and senior lecturer at the University of Ibadan in 1969 and was subsequently promoted to Professor of Virology in 1975.
Scientists all over the world believe that diseases are caused by microscopic organisms (Bacteria).
If we have someone like professor Tam David West, sickness and death in Nigeria should not be a thing of the past but ought to be reduced to the barest minimum but millions of Nigerians die every hour, day and year because our first generation Virologists with such overwhelming experience and excellent credentials have no elementary idea as to discover the cause and prevention of very simple diseases.
In the light of experience, Tam David West has not embarked on any practical research work in a medical laboratory to arrive at positive solutions with which to sweep away the tide of killer disease in tropical Africa. Nigerians professors have continued to rely on foreign medicines without which the death rate would have risen astronomically. Tam David West has published several authoritative articles in the following journals; Transactions of the Royal Society of tropical medicine and hygiene, Intervirology, Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology and the Journal of hygiene respectively.
No scientific discovery or invention has been reported in any of these journals. The articles are based on theoretical articulations only. He has no hope or determination to make a landmark contribution in the field of tropical medicine.
Non- availability of fund is an unquestionable factor militating against the research effort of scientists in Nigerian Universities.
This has not affected our United State trained Virologist. He is only ignorant or incapable of appreciating the function of technology.
The world will be hesitate to believe that a Professor of Virology at the University of Ibadan since 1969 who had been a Commissioner of Education in then old Rivers State, Member of a Constitution Drafting Committee in a Military Government and Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could not secure funds to set up a Research Centre for the development of tropical medicine as well as prevention of diseases in Nigeria.
Professor Tam David West is only interested in social criticism, politics and survival. He is attracted to get richer by all means but his counterparts, friends and associates in America, Europe, Russia, China and Japan are of the view that learning is better than silver and gold.
Their educational policy is to create, invent and discover more ideas and technologies to make life better. This innovativeness is the principal fundamental objective of going to school in the western world. Why not Nigeria? Scientists in the western world do not escape from their laboratories to criticize their presidents or public office holders with the elaborate aim of securing a favour or appointment.
Tam David West is not ignorant of the fact that Pathologists, Virologists, Bacteriologist, Dentists, Pharmacists and Surgeons in the universities he attended in the United States- Michigan, Yale and McGill have made numerous inventions and discoveries with patent to produce and market their products. Where are your products Nigeria’s Professor of Virology?
They direct their own companies with multi-million dollars in their accounts and supplement government’s efforts in providing for the poor and needy. They are richer than senators and ministers in Nigeria.
They exonerate themselves from politics and arrive at a desired station which education and scientific research provided for them so as to excel the wealth and popularity of unproductive scientists like Tam David West who escape from his research obligation and assumed the delicate behavior of the hyena dragging a tiny piece of bone with the Lion (government) by a barrel of destructive and defamatory criticisms that have no bearing.
Let Tam David West apply his repository of experience to eradicate diseases in Nigeria. What about Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, The Wright brothers and others regularly recited by Tam David West in his endless academic discourses? The Wright Brothers were ordinary Bicycle repairers and others do not have the qualification which Tam David West possessed.
Their success is derived from interminable experience, courage and determination. Who is richer than these men? Tam David West can equally come up with something scientific but he decided to keep his inspiration in a file cabinet waiting to die off prematurely.
Remember, the President is not at liberty to be insulted by any person. He policies and programmes can be criticize constructively and not by your open abuse of words without reserves.
Before I depart from my esteemed readers, I would like the Nigerian community and his associates in Europe and America to interrogate the professor, how many drugs has he discovered or invented to eradicate diseases caused by microscopic bodies as a consultant virologist? What has he done to improve the health and hygiene of Nigerians apart from delivering theoretical lessons on virology in the classroom?
A critical analysis of his essays shows that he claimed to be more versatile than lawyers, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists. It is lodged in the innermost of his hidden mind that he is a master of all disciplines. Nigerians, do you agree? No. His writings are a statement of claim. Be warned!
Chief Jones Abiri,
Public Affairs Analysis, based in Yenagoa (+234(0)8037509913,
Email:cji34459@gmail.com