Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Sel­wyn Ryan was an ed­u­ca­tion­al re­source par ex­cel­lence. He was a poll­ster who chart­ed the course for elec­tion polling in Trinidad and To­ba­go and many jour­nal­ists turned to him for his analy­sis on the po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try.

His­to­ri­an Brid­get Br­ere­ton de­scribed Pro­fes­sor Ryan as "the au­thor of record for the na­tion's mod­ern po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry" and the per­son who had done the most to "help the na­tion to learn about its mod­ern his­to­ry."

So­ci­ol­o­gist An­tho­ny Main­got mean­while de­scribed him as "the most pro­lif­ic and in­flu­en­tial in­tel­lec­tu­al in post-colo­nial Trinidad.”

Pro­fes­sor Ryan, who was 86, first wrote columns in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian in 1972, but even­tu­al­ly moved on to the Trinidad Ex­press in 1976.

His writ­ings and per­spec­tive formed the ba­sis for na­tion­al dis­cus­sion. He was a vi­sion­ary whose mes­sages are con­tained in not just his columns but in the over two dozen books he wrote, where he doc­u­ment­ed the po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry of T&T and the wider Caribbean.

In 2012, he was be­stowed with the Cha­co­nia Medal Gold for his con­tri­bu­tion to high­er ed­u­ca­tion.

He was a proud and pa­tri­ot­ic T&T na­tion­al who made friends and some en­e­mies along the way with his bold speak and analy­sis but as he not­ed, "Along the jour­ney, I met many in­ter­est­ing per­son­al­i­ties."

In 2019, he launched his last book, "Ryan Re­calls - Sel­wyn Ryan: His Mem­oirs," which chron­i­cled his mem­oirs. It is that book that Ryan de­scribed as his best book ever.

But as a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist ex­tra­or­di­naire, Ryan was al­ways fo­cused on the analy­sis of gov­er­nance. In a pa­per pub­lished in 2011 ti­tled The Role of Po­lit­i­cal Par­ties in The De­vel­op­ment of Democ­ra­cy In The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, he ob­served that “giv­en their im­por­tance, po­lit­i­cal par­ties can­not be left in splen­did iso­la­tion and as un­reg­u­lat­ed as they cur­rent­ly are. They must be reg­is­tered and made to sub­scribe to rules of good pub­lic be­hav­iour, rules which are sub­ject to the law.”

“As it is now,” Ryan wrote, “par­ties are in pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions and are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly un­reg­u­lat­ed. There are no rules about how much mon­ey they can raise for elec­tions or to meet op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es, or how much they can spend. Such reg­u­la­tions and dis­clo­sures as ex­ist, re­late to can­di­dates and not to par­ties.”

This coun­try has had promis­es of leg­is­la­tion to gov­ern po­lit­i­cal spend­ing at elec­tion time but noth­ing has hap­pened to reg­u­late such spend­ing.

Dr Ryan set the stage for elec­toral polling in this coun­try with first the Ryan Poll, which lat­er evolved in­to the Sara Poll.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley took to Face­book to ex­tend his con­do­lences, de­scrib­ing Ryan as one of the coun­try’s “bright­est and most ap­pre­cia­tive sons. He ed­u­cat­ed us, he guid­ed us, he helped us to ap­pre­ci­ate each oth­er and love the land we live in and the many lega­cies be­stowed up­on us by an an­ces­try so com­plex and strong.”

Pro­fes­sor Ryan was a man who want­ed bet­ter for this coun­try and who sought to make a dif­fer­ence through his role as ed­u­ca­tor and teacher, and one who saw the po­lit­i­cal land­scape for what it was.

His lega­cy re­mains in those whom he taught and for­tu­nate­ly, his writ­ings through a col­lec­tion of his man­u­scripts, cor­re­spon­dence and scrap­books from his ear­ly life which he do­nat­ed to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine’s Cam­pus’ Al­ma Jor­dan Li­brary at the same time of his last book launch - apt­ly called the Sel­wyn Ryan Col­lec­tion. This he do­nat­ed to UWI so that young and up­com­ing stu­dents and aca­d­e­mics could ben­e­fit from his re­search.

His was a jour­ney we can all, as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, be tru­ly proud of. May his soul rest in eter­nal peace. This news­pa­per ex­tends con­do­lences to his wife Jan and fam­i­ly.