Photo: Prof. Festus Iyayi Murdered? Gun hole found on copse

Two Holes discovered on the body of Proffessor Festus Iyayi's has given life to the suspicions by his fellow colleagues that he may have been shot to death and not killed in an accident as widely reported.

Iyayi was travelling to Kano in the company of three other ASUU members for a meeting on the ongoing strike by members of the union when a police escort van in the convoy of the Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State rammed into the bus the university teachers were travelling. Iyayi died instantly, while three his colleagues were seriously injured.

One Week after the accident ASUU dismissed the view that Iyayi's death was accidental and forcefully contested the official claim that his heart was pierced by a strange object at the accident scene.

In a statement issued by the University of Benin chapter of the union, ASUU said Iyayi did not die in an accident, but was "wilfully" murdered.

It demanded that an autopsy be performed on Iyayi's corpse and warned government officials to stay away from the burial.

But how closely do the holes on Iyayi's body resemble those made by bullets, especially given that the one on the chest looks big?

A retired army colonel told Reporters that the holes have a high degree of consistency with those made by bullets. "There is a 70 per cent probability that the man was murdered and 30 per cent that it was an accident," he said.

If it was an accident, he argued, the impact would have caused a squeeze, not neatly drilled holes. He explained that a close-range shot from a pistol would cause the bullet to enter an object, as it allegedly did Iyayi, and exit through the back.

"The big hole in the chest shows that it was a pistol. This is because the wound a pistol creates is bigger at the entrance and smaller at the exit. But if it was a Kalashnikov (AK47), it would be smaller at the entrance and bigger at the exit," he further explained.

"There is the possibility of shooting in the confusion of the accident or that the accident could have been contrived to cover up shots," the retired colonel said.