‘We’re no longer safe’ — ASUU asks Tinubu, IGP to arrest killers of UI prof

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan (UI) chapter, has called on Usman Alkali Baba, the inspector-general of police (IGP), to ensure the people who killed Professor Opeyemi Ajewole are brought to book.

Ajewole, a professor of social and environmental forestry at UI, was killed by suspected gunmen on his way home on Monday night.

ASUU Chairman at UI, Ayo Akinwole, in a statement on Thursday, called on the IGP to assist the Oyo State Police Command with all logistics needed to unravel and arrest those behind Ajewole’s death.

Akinwole also appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene and demonstrate to Nigerians that their lives matter to his administration.

“The heart of every ASUU-UI member is bleeding so profusely as if pierced by swords. Our bones shook so tremendously as if our marrows were naked in the tundra region,” he said.

“We condemn in totality the gruesome murder of our comrade, Prof. Opeyemi Ajewole and charge the security operatives to track down and apprehend the perpetrators of this dastardly act, with a view to unravelling the motive behind the incident, as well as bringing the perpetrators to book.”

The UI ASUU chairman said the incident “again reminded us of how valueless human lives had become in our clime”.

“Death lurks in all imaginable and unimaginable corners of this country and comes cheaply. The Nigerian populace is constantly assailed by terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, assassination, hunger, unemployment, and many more insidious exterminators of our individual and collective dreams,” he added.

“The situation of the Nigerian academics is even doubly precarious; they are prophets without any honour at home.

“The union wishes to use this teary occasion of Prof. Ajewole’s sudden death to call on the Nigerian state to resolutely tackle the problem of insecurity in the country, apprehend the killers of Prof. Ajewole and punish them most appropriately.”