Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Tuesday said a coroner’s inquest should be conducted into the death of a former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Festus Iyayi, before his burial.
Soyinka in a statement said failure to conduct the inquest to ascertain the cause of Iyayi’s death would “make all of us accessories to a possible crime.”
He enjoined other citizens to demand the inquest along with him as a means of seeking a “collective shield” and also in the service of truth and patriotism.
There have been controversies surrounding Iyayi’s death after he was killed in a car crash on his way to Kano to participate in the National Executive Council meeting of ASUU.
Soyinka’s call for a coroner’s inquest appeared to have arisen from the publication of the mortuary photos of Iyayi’s body in The NEWS magazine.
The poet and playwright said tributes to the late Iyayi were meaningless if doubts surrounding his death were “silenced.”
He said, “The world is watching. With the mortuary photos of the late Festus Iyayi just published in THE NEWS, the world is waiting and watching if the corpse shown in that image will be interred without a coroner’s inquest.
“To allow this to happen is to make all of us accessories to a possible crime. It means we are now attuned to the culture of impunity and forfeited all claims to elementary citizen security. Tributes ring hollow if doubts are silenced.”
According to Soyinka, the nation has to know, beyond all doubts, all the circumstances about Iyayi’s death.
He said, “‘Beyond all doubt’ is a protective armour for each one of us, no matter where and how. So let the nation be placed in knowledge beyond all doubt over the circumstances of Festus Iyayi’s death. That is the minimum any self-respecting society must demand, not merely as a collective shield, but in the service of truth, and for all posterity.
“We remain haunted by the far too frequent, unexplained decimation in the ranks of the committed.
“A coroner’s inquest – that is where to begin.”
Meanwhile, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Abdulwaheed Omar, has criticised the Federal Government over its inability to fix the Lokoja-Abuja road.
Speaking on Tuesday, in Benin, Edo State, while on a condolence visit to Governor Adams Oshiomhole and the family of the late Iyayi, the NLC President said the state of the road “unwittingly” led to Iyayi’s death.
Omar described the late Iyayi as a committed activist, who added value to the labour movement in the country.
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