By AMAKA ABAYOMI & IKENNA ASOMBA

The ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, will, for a variety of reasons, be imprinted in the sands of time. One undeniable reason for this is the passing of a former ASUU President, late Prof. Festus Iyayi, who died on November 12, 2013, in a road accident on his way to attend the ASUU NEC meeting in Kano State.

Iyayi spent the better part of his life fighting for the improved welfare of lecturers and the betterment of the education sector, especially the university system. Even with his death, the issues he died trying to resolve are yet to be resolved, especially as government has directed all federal varsities to reopen on December 4, the day his burial rites would commence.

According to the notice of his burial contained in a statement issued by the family and the burial committee in Benin which was signed by Mr. Ehidiamen Iyayi and Prof. Diri Teilanyo, the burial programme has been fixed for between December 4 and 7 with a solidarity march from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Benin, to his residence in Benin on December 4.

On December 5, there would be service of songs and night of tributes at his residence in Benin, followed by lying in state at his residence in Benin on December 6, while the body departs Benin for Ugbegun in Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo, his country home, where he will be interred.

Born 1947, in Ugbegun in Ishan, Edo State, Prof. Festus Iyayi started his education at Annunciation Catholic College (ACC) in the old Bendel State, finishing in 1966, in 1967 he went to Government College Ughelli, graduating in 1968. Iyayi left Nigeria to pursue his higher education, obtaining an M.Sc in Industrial Economics from the Kiev Institute of Economics, in the former USSR, and then his Ph.D from the University of Bradford, England.

In 1980, he returned to Benin and became a lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at the University of Benin. He was ASUU president in 1986, but in 1988, the union was briefly banned and Iyayi was detained. In that same year he won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for his novel, Heroes.

Iyayi was a member of different Nigerian literary organizations and worked in the private sector as a consultant. As a prolific author, Iyayi authored masterpieces such as Violence (1979), The Contract (1982), Heroes, (1986) and Awaiting Court Martial (1996).

Meanwhile, the burial is expected to be graced by members cutting across the over 61 chapters of the union, among other eminent Nigerians. Also, after its NEC meeting On November 22, the union resolved to immortalize Professor Iyayi.