Former President of the Academic Staff Union of University, Dr. Festus Iyayi, is dead.
We gathered that the renowned writer, university teacher and activist Festus Iyayai died in a road accident on his way to the national congress of ASUU in Kano.
ASUU President Dr. Nasir Fagge confirmed his death to NE, He said the sad news was broken to the union a few hours ago.
The professor died on a failed portion of a Nigerian highway around Lokoja in Kogi state according to ASUU.
ASUU is expected to announce the suspension of the five-month strike that had paralyzed academic activities in the nation’s varsities at the meeting.
Dr. Festus Iyayi
In the early and mid-1980s, Mr. Iyayi broke out of the confines of his academic discipline and emerged as one of Nigeria’s most radical writers with such novels as Heroes, Violence, and The Contract.
Mr. Iyayi studied economics and business management in the old Soviet Union as well as in the UK, and became a career-long professor of business at the University of Benin (UNIBEN).
A fearless, outspoken member of ASUU, he was at one time a leader of the union’s chapter at UNIBEN before becoming the group’s national leader in 1986 during the dictatorship of General Ibrahim Babangida. In the early 90s he was elected as the President of the Committee for the Defence of Human rights (CDHR).
His death will be seen as the biggest individual casualty of ASUU’s prolonged strike