It Is Clear That Iyayi Was Murdered

Sylvester Odion Akhaine, senior lecturer, Department of Political Science, Lagos State University and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation, speaks on the suspicion that Iyayi was murdered

How would you describe the life of the late Iyayi through your relationship with him as an academic and activist? 

I would say that Festus was an accomplished academic, he was multi-disciplinary in the sense that he was a specialist in industrial economics but who got the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and that tells you the multi-disciplinary nature of Iyayi. When you talk about academics, he was rigorous. Scholarship is not just frivolity, it is about the rigour that you bring to bear in your paper analysis, the insight you bring to bear on problems; that is what academics is all about.

In terms of that, he was an accomplished academic. If you look at the university systems all over the world, individual scholars usually make a faculty tick. You go to Harvard University, you talk Prof. Biodun Jeyifo in Comparative Literature; you go to to MIT, you talk about Noam Chomsky; you go to Colombia University you talk about Mahmood Mamdani, who is back in Makerere University, Uganda. Scholars, by sheer erudition and the level of rigour they bring into scholarship, make faculties tick all over the world. The University of Benin has lost an important scholar within the Faculty of Business Administration and the university as a whole.

Now beyond that, Iyayi was a problem solver. He was an individual that the country would have needed to solve plenty of its problems. If Nigeria state actors take seriously their own scholars and human resources that they have in the country, things would be better. Today, people talk about Education Trust Fund and the rest of it but it was when Iyayi was president of ASUU that all of this was articulated in a major document titled: ‘How To Save Nigeria.’

Now, if you look at the ongoing ASUU crisis, Iyayi was also instrumental in articulating most of the solutions to the identified problems within the university system. So Iyayi was a first class scholar and a problem solver. As I tell people, we lost Beko Ransome-Kuti and have not found another, same applies for Gani Fawehinmi, Baba Omojola and now Festus Iyayi. It will take another century to discover a Festus in Nigeria. Nigeria is destroying its own very best, that is the irony.

The Nigerian government has widely described the death of Iyayi as an accident but activists and academics say he was murdered. What is your position and why? 

It is clear that Iyayi was murdered. The whole thing about the accident is just pretence. You know, creating a picture of an accident was a cover they needed to murder this very important scholar. Now the ASUU struggle has come to prove a challenge to the powers that be. People are saying, why should Iyayi be the target of the state? The ASUU struggle is a historic one and it is still ongoing and the President himself has interpreted it as political, whereas those who are involved in the ASUU struggle do know that ASUU struggle is a patriotic struggle to redeem the education sector of the country.

But the powers that be interpret it as a challenge to their authority, as a challenge to their control of state power and those who are involved are therefore targets of state terrorism and that is what I feel happened in Iyayi’s case. Anybody that has seen the body of Iyayi will know that what was said to be an accident is beyond an accident!

Interpreting the photographs now, what did you see that made you say so? 

We know when accidents happen there are some injuries that are possible but the hole in Iyayi’s heart goes beyond an accident. Moreover, there is nothing in the accident environment that could have done that kind of injury to Iyayi’s body and so it raises more questions than the accident story.

The coroner’s inquest report is out; does it corroborate that theory? 

The coroner’s report is not the result of an autopsy. I think that there is a prima facie kind of report. That is the way I see it, as it is not an autopsy report. Until an autopsy is done, you cannot say anything to the contrary. But we do know that in this part of the world and in most political murders, autopsy reports can be falsified and therefore may not tell the story eventually.

The autopsy report is not out yet; what may be delaying it? 

It may not be unconnected with the bureaucratic procedures, the necessary documentations that need to be done and the broad arrangement for his funeral.

Does this controversial death seem to have some precedents? 

The Chima Ubani thing was simply passed away as an accident in the height of the anti-fuel subsidy protest that took the civil society around the country, including the NLC. Chima died along with two journalists. Today, nobody is actually sure whether Chima died as a result of an accident or not but don’t forget that historically, a former ASUU president also died from a so-called motor accident. That was Comrade Mahmood Tukur during the Shagari regime.

So we can say that there has been precedents. Chima’s death was simply posted as an accident, but nobody knows why Chima had to die along with two journalists in the height of a major crisis against oil subsidy.

What will the academic community do if no one takes responsibility for his death? 

I cannot speak for the entire academic community. What is clear is that we have put the issue in the public domain. Let Nigerians think that we are back to the Abacha years and we have been here before and it is bad enough that we are back to the Abacha years in this country when people cannot voice their opinion, people cannot prosecute patriotic endeavour to turn the country around.

Iyayi was a super patriot who was trying to turn the country around. If people are not playing the role of Boko Haram but the role of intellectuals and the state is destroying them, that is very unfortunate.