dtw_sola:

[url=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=1&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fct-met-uic-student-killed-20101206-21%2C0%2C327635.story&ei=rNP9TJnzGIP58AadoIjbBw&usg=AFQjCNG5pHT4S-TbNPDLN9__7oz9is4m5w&sig2=4mbVRHdAOGQUsCdvfvdL_w]School pays final respects to brilliant young man.[/url]

Olubusayo Awomolo was the kind of graduate student who would quickly finish his projects, hand in reports early and ace exams.

But after he finished his own work, he would take a moment to offer help to other students, said his classmates and professors at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Monday.

A week after the 21-year-old mechanical engineering student was fatally shot outside his house in south suburban Dolton, the Nigerian immigrant's friends, professors and school administrators gathered with his family to mourn. Awomolo was a master's degree candidate scheduled to graduate this month, officials said.

"In a short life, he touched so many people," said Peter Nelson, dean of engineering. "We cannot understand this senseless loss. … We keep asking ourselves, 'Why? Why? Why?'"

According to Dolton police, Awomolo was shot between 7 and 8 p.m. Nov. 29 in the 15500 block of Ingleside Avenue, near the driveway of his house. Although several of his neighbors heard the shots, no one called police, said police Chief Bolden Jones. Police and Awomolo's family have asked the public to come forward and help authorities find who is responsible for the shooting. No one is in custody.


On Monday, Awomolo's classmates and professors used the ceremony to tell his family how much he meant to the university. Awomolo was one of five siblings who attended UIC, and three have graduated from there, school officials said.

With Awomolo's parents and siblings in the front row, the students and teachers described him as a humble scholar whose projects sometimes corrected flaws in his classmates' and professors' work.

They vowed to carry on his research and to promote his legacy of quiet academic excellence with a scholarship. Awomolo was concentrating his research on projects that could eventually help reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, Nelson said.

On the night he was killed, Awomolo was returning home from his class on numerical heat transfer.

Farzad Mashayek, head of the mechanical and industrial engineering department who taught the course, said he was likely one of the last people to see Awomolo before he died. Awomolo was supposed to present his final paper two days later, but that day he handed it in early.

"We lost one of our most promising students," Mashayek said.

Khurram Akber, a student who took classes with Awomolo, said that even after he heard the news, he couldn't believe it.

"I was sitting in the lab all day hoping he would walk by and say, 'How are you?'" he said. "Olu was a great person."

After the service, Awomolo's parents said they were moved to learn their shy, modest and studious son had touched so many lives. His mother, Olufunmilayo Awomolo, said she knew her son was bright, and now she knows others knew it too.

"We should live his legacy," she said. "We cannot just turn around."


Nancy Cohen, left, director of development for the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Engineering, comforts Olufunmilayo Awomolo on Monday during a memorial gathering in remembrance of Awomolo's son, engineering graduate student Olubusayo Awomolo. (Antonio Perez, Tribune photo / December 5, 2010)

deluxecad:

My heart bleeds for this promising young man. The perpetrators of this heinous crime will not go free, time will catch up with them.  Rest in peace beloved bro.

conn-kg:

Sorry to hear. I do ot know whom to direct my questions to, but will the Mod please help out?

1. Will it be a violation of privacy to attach a face to the name? (In time, it will be in the news; but you might need his familiy's permission)

2. Can the username "bawomolo" not be given to any other Nairalander in any form (i.e. the inclusion of numbers or letters or plain phonetic/pronunciation)

3. Does Nairaland have a face - a face that can (and just might) be visible to his family?

4. I am not in the US, but will like to find out if it was a case of mistaken identity, as I cannot bear the thought of a scandal a revelation of a duplicitous life could bring.

ajetii:

Can Seun or the Moderator put a link to this page on the Chicago tribune as a comment?

I have not try it but i guess is possible and then his friends, family and probably the killer might get to read us. Just my tot.  

sugarcane:

Rip bawomolo
Although I never post on NL, I'm the most avid reader ever. (Yeah we exist too)
I must say this news has shocked and dealt me such a blow that I can't help but come out of lurking and pay my respect.
It's not often you come across someone in real life or online who encompasses the most qualities you'll love to possess. Tolerance is a big big virtue, love is a massive virtue, generosity, intelligence and humour, big virtues, This young man (who I put down as an old world-weary wise man had all these virtues in surplus. So tell me, does anybody think it's possible that after living his short life this way, he wouldn't be rewarded for it? Please please someone tell me!
So regardless what people might think about this life, please just consider that aspect.
Don't know where he is now but I know and believe he is in a better place! So all you judge and jury, take time out to reflect on what life means. It's not about stamping 'christian' on your passport and getting a free ride to the pearly gates.

I'll go back to lurking now but want to sincerely pass my condolences to his family and friends, here on nairaland and in real life. I will miss his contributions to this site.

Mudley313:

Link to the site below. they actually also got a tribute thread for him on there; this sucks :

http://community.allhiphop.com/showthread.php?86502-RIP-Busayo

Ibime:


So Busayo was an underG HipHop head as well?


RIP once again to this humble man.

spikedcylinder:

Sigh.

link=topic=562796.msg7289751#msg7289751 date=1291741986:

You have Obama, and Oprah, two of the most powerful people in the US that have very strong ties to Chicago, yet they cannot atleast acknowledge what is going on there. My heart hurts for the brother, to leave a country that is your home to escape that hell, hopes and dreams of making a good life for yourself in this place they all talk so great about, AMERICA. where the quality of life is so much better, where you have so many opportunities to live a grande life, to be filled with excitement, yet anxiety about your new journey, to arrive where everything is new, even the language, you have to learn to speak, the people, the culture, and to think you finally made it. To be gunned down in front of your own home, like its nothing. [size=18pt]To make that trip, that journey across the world to leave poverty only to land in hell[/size]. rest brother. You did not die in vain. We all should take away from what you taught us here, in that it is ok to disagree without the disrespect its ok to have your own opinion, its ok just to be who you are.