Well-known educator Adolphus Daniel dies in Tobago

FORMER businessman/educator Adolphus Daniel is dead.

Up to press time details were sketchy but his death was confirmed to Newsday by three separate well-placed sources on Monday.

One source in Trinidad told Newsday that Daniel had died on Sunday night in Tobago, seemingly from food poisoning. Another source, in Tobago, said his body was taken to the mortuary at Signal Hill, Tobago, which is part of Scarborough General Hospital. A third source, a relative who wished to remain unnamed, confirmed Daniel's death, and said he died at that hospital.

A senior police officer in Tobago had tried to contact Daniel for Newsday, but said no one was answering his phone.

The relative told Newsday Daniel's death was "completely unexpected." This source did not know Daniel to have been ailing.

"I saw him in February and he was in good health, looking good and looking fit. To hear of his death now is shocking.

"He was always in good shape. He would do his push-ups every morning, and eat properly. He was really into health and fitness. I thought he would live to 90 years."

Daniel had initially built his reputation when in the mid-1980s he established the Daniel Education Community (DEC), delivering privately-run evening classes to pupils of modest means and held at the prestigious St Mary's College, Port of Spain.

But decades later he faced public criticism for accepting a $34 million fee to develop an educational programme for the discredited Life Sport programme, under the former People's Partnership (PP) government. Daniel's programme was never implemented and Life Sport was shut down after an audit by the Ministry of Finance in 2014.

Former sport minister Anil Roberts on Monday told Newsday, "He wasn't a friend of mine. I don't know the man. I probably had one conversation with him, over the phone, in my life."

Daniel had once publicly said he was a friend of the former minister's father, Al Roberts.

Among those Daniel leaves to mourn are his wife Kay Daniel and ex-wife Ingrid Daniel, plus children from each of these relationships, including a namesake, Adolphus Daniel Jr, who at age ten earned full marks on a SAT math exam.

In November 2019, Newsday reported that Ingrid Daniel was suing Justice Joseph Tam over the lengthiness of her divorce application, lodged in 2004, which in succession had been transferred from Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee to Justice Malcolm Holdip and then to Tam.