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.
The Joint Action Front, JAF, a coalition of labour organisations, accused the
government of masterminding Iyayi’s murder. A statement signed by its
president, Comrade Abiodun Aremu, said the circumstances of Iyayi’s death
are questionable.
The group believes that Iyayi was allegedly murdered to destabilise ASUU.
“We strongly believe that the assassination of Comrade Iyayi was carried out
by expert shooters in the cover of the Nigerian intelligence, reminiscent of the
state murder of Dele Giwa in 1986 and Kudirat Abiola in 1996,” the statement
said. JAF also alleged that the statement of Dr. Paul Amodu of the Specialist
Hospital in Lokoja, where Iyayi was rushed to, did not adequately explain the
piercing of Iyayi’s heart by a strange object.
Dr. Sylvester Akhaine, a Political Science lecturer at the University of Lagos, is
similarly persuaded. Akhaine alleged that the accident was invented as a
cover for the murder because ASUU’s struggles have made the government
hot under the collar. He argued that there was nothing at the accident scene
that could have drilled holes in Iyayi’s body. When told the coroner’s inquest
did not support his claims, Akhaine retorted: “The coroner’s report is not the
result of an autopsy. Until an autopsy is done, you cannot say anything to the
contrary.”
Writing in THE NATION, Dr. Ropo Sekoni, a retired teacher of Comparative
Literature, branded as incompetent Amodu’s claim that the piercing of Iyayi’s
heart must have been responsible for his death. “What is this medical talk
designed to achieve, a science-driven identification of etiology of death? Did
Dr. Amodu’s observations derive from the result of a post-mortem
examination?” Shekoni asked.
Dr. Ngozi Ilo and Dr. Sunny Iyalo, ASUU National Welfare Officer and Zonal
Coordinator respectively, who travelled with the deceased, also disputed the
claim that a metal object at the scene of the accident was responsible for the
holes on Iyayi’s body.
But how closely do the holes on Iyayi’s body resemble those made by bullets,
especially given that the one on the chest looks big? A retired army colonel
told TheNEWS that the holes have a high degree of consistency with those
made by bullets. “There is a 70 per cent probability that the man was
murdered and 30 per cent that it was an accident,” he said. If it was an
accident, he argued, the impact would have caused a squeeze, not neatly
drilled holes. He explained that a close-range shot from a pistol would cause
the bullet to enter an object, as it allegedly did Iyayi, and exit through the back.
“The big hole in the chest shows that it was a pistol. This is because the
wound a pistol creates is bigger at the entrance and smaller at the exit. But if
it was a Kalashnikov (AK47), it would be smaller at the entrance and bigger at
the exit,” he further explained. The retired officer added that AK47 bullets
gather momentum as they hit target, unlike pistol bullets, which create bigger
impact at the point of entry.
“There is the possibility of shooting in the confusion of the accident or that the
accident could have been contrived to cover up shots,” the retired colonel
told this magazine.
But did any of the survivors hear a shot before or after the crash? Not exactly,
but they are not ruling out the possibility that a gun may have gone off on
account of the impact created by the collision. This is because in all likelihood,
the vehicle responsible for the accident had heavily armed passengers. “I
heard the two vehicles collide. But given that it was a police vehicle, it is
possible that, as we usually notice, cops in the escort vehicles of governors
are always armed. So, anything could have happened on impact,” reasoned
Anthony Monye-Emima, Chairman, University of Benin ASUU branch. If that
was what happened, could Iyayi’s death be described as anything but
accidental? Obviously not.
Lawyer and former university teacher, Professor Itse Sagay, urged caution.
Sagay, who was sacked alongside Iyayi from the University of Benin by the
military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1987, said: “Nobody can
pinpoint exactly what was responsible for the injury (the hole in the chest),
which I believe killed him. There was no piece of iron or sharp-edged object
found that could have done it. I believe the only solution to the problem is to
have a very thorough autopsy to determine the cause of death and from there,
one can then begin to build on what possibly could be responsible for his
death.”
Sagay added that since there is no doubt that Iyayi’s death was caused by
somebody in Governor Wada’s convoy, a case of murder or at the minimum,
manslaughter, could be established.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, ascribed Iyayi’s death to criminal
negligence and executive recklessness. Abdulwaheed Omar, NLC President,
said the organisation will petition the National Human Rights Commission
should the federal and Kogi State governments refuse to take responsibility for
Iyayi’s death.