Country mourns Professor Iba Der Thiam

Professor Iba Der Thiam, an eminent Senegalese historian and politician, has died aged 83.

During his varied career, Thiam was a professor of history at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar; leader of teachers’ unions for nearly 20 years; education and higher education minister from 1983 to 1988; founder of a political party, Convention des Démocrates et des Patriotes, in 1992; elected as a member of parliament and, in 2007, vice-president of the National Assembly of Senegal, reported Radio France International. He twice stood unsuccessfully for president, in 1993 and 2000.

While pursuing his political activities, he continued his academic and teaching work, and was author of about a dozen works. As a member of the UNESCO scientific committee, he played a leading part in the organisation’s General History of Africa project, and later supervised editorial production of the General History of Senegal.

As education minister, he initiated the process of changing the colonialist names of public buildings and establishments, reported Le Soleil.

Following Thiam’s death, President Macky Sall paid tribute to him as a “historian of worldwide renown … a foremost figure of contemporary Senegal … and a clear-sighted patriot,” reported the Agence de Presse Sénégalaise.

Former higher education minister Professor Mary Teuw Niane described him as a patriot, intellectual, reformer and African who had contributed to many diverse union issues in Senegalese education. He said Thiam had advanced studies in the history of Africa and of Senegal, and was a generous, open, affable man attached to African values. — Compiled by Jane Marshall.

This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.