LAGOS — A former chairman of Committee of Pro-Chancellors and chairman of BiCourtney Group, Dr. Wale Babalakin, SAN, has expressed shock at the tragic manner in which the former President of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Professor Festus Iyayi, who died on Tuesday in Lokoja, Kogi State, while on his way to Kano for a meeting of the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the union.

Babalakin, who was the chairman of the Implementation Monitoring Committee of the Federal Government of Nigeria/University-based Unions Agreement 2009, expressed regret that Iyayi’s death was a sad development and a set-back to the current effort to halt the prolonged industrial action by ASUU.

The respected lawyer, however, said Prof. Iyayi’s death, as sad and regrettable as it was, should serve as a nudge to the whole nation on areas of our national life that require urgent and sincere attention.

In a statement, yesterday, Dr. Babalakin commiserated with the leadership and members of ASUU as well as the immediate family members and friends of the professor, on the tragic death.

He said: ‘’I knew Prof. Iyayi as a brilliant and committed scholar and an exemplary leader who wanted the very best for the Nigerian universities and the educational system in general.

He added that the best way to honour the departed academic would be to pay true respect to educational values, the type that Prof. Iyayi fought for all his life.

‘’Professor Iyayi would not have died in vain if the sad occurrence of Tuesday caused us to revisit and act on the agreements between ASUU and the Federal Government that were painstakingly negotiated with the prime desire not only to uplift tertiary education in Nigeria from its lowly, less-than-ideal state, but to also, ultimately, lead to the autonomy of universities in the country,” said Babalakin who is the immediate past Pro-Chancellor of the University of Maiduguri.