Professor Tamunoemi Sokari David-West is dead.
He dies at age 83 at the University College Hospital around 11 am today
David-West was born in Buguma, Kalabari, in what is now Rivers State.
David-West was a consultant virologist and senior lecturer at the University of Ibadan in 1969 and was subsequently promoted to professor of virology in 1975.
David-West served in Nigerian government as commissioner of education and a member of the Executive Council of Rivers State (1975–1979)
He was a member of the fifty-person Constitution Drafting Committee for the Federal Military Government of General Murtala Muhammed (1979),
He served as federal minister of petroleum and energy under General Muhammadu Buhari (1984–1985), and as minister of mines, power, and steel under General Ibrahim Babangida (1986).
He was eventually removed as minister and arrested by the Babangida regime for allegedly contributing to the economic adversity of the country; He was discharged and acquitted of these charges by Nigeria’s Special Appeal Court on 8 August 1991.
