Former president of the Association of Senior Staff of Universities, ASUU, Prof. Festus Iyayi is dead. He died Tuesday morning in a car crash on his way to Kano to participate in tomorrow’s National Executive Council Meeting of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) expected to declare an end to the over 4-month strike.
ASUU President Dr. Nasir Fagge confirmed his death to our correspondent. He said the sad news was broken to the union a few hours ago.
Prof. Iyayi was president of ASUU from 1986 to 1988.
He was born in 1947, in Ugbegun, Ishan, Edo State.
In 1968, he left the shores of Nigeria to pursue his higher education, obtaining a M.Sc in Industrial Economics from the Kiev Institute of Economics, in the former U.S.S.R., and then his Ph.D from the University of Bradford, England.
In 1980, he went back to Benin and became a lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at the University of Benin.
A well known author, with four books to his credit (Violence, The Contract, Heroes, and Awaiting Court Martial), Prof. Iyayi won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature for his book Heroes in 1988.
