Isaiah Balat dies at 61

Presidential Adviser on Special Duties in the office of the Vice President, Senator Isaiah Chawai Balat, died yesterday at the National Hospital, Abuja after a brief illness at the age of 61 as arrangements were being made to fly him to a German hospital. He had been ill and admitted to the hospital where he was receiving treatment till yesterday.

He was the Minister of State for Works and Housing from May 1999 to December 2000 and the senator representing Kaduna South between May 2003 and May 2007. He contested the Kaduna State PDP governorship primaries in 2007 and lost to now Vice President Namadi Sambo. Balat was a strong member of the PDP until his death.

Isaiah Balat was born in Gora, a village in Zangon Kataf LGA of Kaduna State. He lost his mother as an infant and had to live with his grandmother until he was old enough to fend for himself. After his primary and post-primary education, Balat attended a programme in Marketing at the Kaduna Polytechnic between 1976 and 1978. Later, he attended an advanced management program at the Harvard Business School and the College of Petroleum and Energy Studies at Oxford, United Kingdom. He established the Isaiah Balat Foundation with the goal of vaccinating over one million people against meningitis in Kaduna State.

Balat is survived by two wives and five children. His close political associate and former sole administrator of Lere LGA, Dogara Achayi, told Daily Trust that he had been down for months, a condition he said made him to drop a ministerial appointment for Laurentia Laraba Mallam. At his Kaduna residence in Gora close, off Gora road, Ungwan Rimi GRA Kaduna, his political associates yesterday grieved over his death, making many phone calls on the sad development. One of his wives left for Abuja.

Senate President David Mark who broke down yesterday when he heard news of the death described Balat as an astute politician, a distinguished parliamentarian, a respectable colleague and gentleman.

Mark recalled his relationship with Balat in the senate between 2003 and 2007 and submitted, “Balat was a friend and a brother.”

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, described the death as shocking, saying Balat was a “refined gentleman”.