The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter on Thursday asked the Inspector General of Police Alkali Baba to assist the Oyo state Police Command with all logistics support needed to unravel and arrest the killers of Professor Opeyemi Isaac Ajewole of the department of Social and environmental forestry Development of the Premier University.
Professor Ajewole was gruesomely gunned down by yet-to-be-identified assailants in the evening of Monday, 5 June 2023, in Ibadan, Oyo State.
In a release signed by the Chairman UI Chapter of ASUU, Professor Ayo Akinwole, the Union tasked President Bola Tinubu to take passionate interest and ensure the security system unmasks the faces behind the murder of the Professor of forest economics and urban forestry.
“The hearts of every ASUU-UI member are bleeding so profusely as if pierced by swords. Our bones shook so tremendously as if our marrows were naked in the tundra region. We condemn in totality the gruesome murder of our comrade, Professor Opeyemi Isaac 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.”
According to Akinwole, the only tribute which the death of Professor Ajewole deserves is that his killers are brought to justice and that Nigerians’ lives should matter to the Tinubu presidency.
He noted that “Professor Ajewole’s gruesome murder again reminds us of how valueless human lives have become in our clime.”
The ASUU boss maintained that “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”.
Professor Akinwole stated further that “the situation of the Nigerian academics is even doubly precarious; they are prophets without any honour at home. Despite their immense contributions to national growth and development and recognitions in the international circle, Nigerian academia are scorned and shabbily treated by the Nigerian state and the public for being unrepentant patriots. It is, therefore, disheartening that academics who cultivate, preserve, and disseminate knowledge for the advancement and development of the society will become victims of societal malady to such an extent as to be targeted for elimination.
“The Union wishes to use the teary occasion of Professor Ajewole’s sudden death to call on the Nigerian state to resolutely tackle the problem of insecurity in the country, apprehend the killers of Professor Ajewole and punish them most appropriately. This is the least tribute that this nation can pay to our fallen hero and friend- Professor Opeyemi Isaac Ajewole.”
