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
