Prof. Iyayi ACCIDENT OR ASSASINATED

The nature of two holes on the late Professor Festus Iyayi’s body gives life to suspicions by his colleagues that he may have been shot.

Along with grief, anger will be the dominant emotion when Professor Festus Iyayi is buried this week in his hometown, Ugbegun in Edo State. The two feelings have mixed, predictably with unsavoury outcomes, since the former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, died on 12 November in an auto accident on the Lokoja-Abuja Expressway.

Iyayi was travelling to Kano in the company of three other ASUU members for a meeting on the ongoing strike by members of the union when a police escort van in the convoy of the Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State rammed into the bus the university teachers were travelling. Iyayi died instantly, while three his colleagues were seriously injured.

Wada, who was severely injured in an accident involving his convoy last year, was widely criticised by ASUU and the wider public for his failure to learn from his own experience and for allegedly failing to stop to assist the victims.

The escort vehicle was said to have veered off from its lane to hit the bus bearing the ASUU members, a claim the Kogi State government denied.

The Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, called for an official inquiry into Iyayi’s death and urged the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, to curb the recklessness of official convoys.

The FRSC also got a slice of the criticisms, following an accusation that it was shielding the driver of the vehicle that smashed into the bus conveying Iyayi and his colleagues.
One week after, ASUU dismissed the view that Iyayi’s death was accidental and forcefully contested the official claim that his heart was pierced by a strange object at the accident scene. The association pointedly blamed the death on the government and “its agents”. In a statement issued by the University of Benin chapter of the union, ASUU said Iyayi did not die in an accident, but was “wilfully” murdered. The union said it will demand concrete answers from the government for the alleged murder. It demanded that an autopsy be performed on Iyayi’s corpse and warned government officials to stay away from the burial.


“His burial should not be an avenue for government officials to score cheap political points, as we will resist any state involvement in the burial,” the union raved. Civil society groups in Edo State also demanded an inquiry into Iyayi’s death.


Was Iyayi murdered? ASUU believes it has what constitutes prima facie evidence to support its suspicion. Members of the union point to two holes, one in the chest and another in the back, as offering a less than complicated indication that Iyayi was shot. Photographs of Iyayi’s corpse obtained by this magazine, show holes that look like entry and exit bullet holes.