As family and friends of slained Professor Opeyemi Ajewole of the department Social and environmental forestry Development of the University of Ibadan prepare to bury him this week, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has tasked the new Acting Inspector General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, to deploy his tactical team to assist the Oyo State command in unmasking the killers of the Professor.
Professor Ajewole was gruesomely gunned down by yet-to-be-identified assailants in the evening of Monday, 5 June 2023, in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Barely a month later, the Academic Union says it is not happy that the killers of their comrade and their motives are yet to be unearthed by the police.
In a release signed by the Chairman, UI Chapter of ASUU, Professor Ayo Akinwole, the Union said the acting Inpector General of Police should take passionate interest in the case, deploy the necessary human and technical expertise to unravel the mystery surrounding the killing so that the evil people will be made to face the wrath of the law.
Akinwole, who said the Oyo state Command has been trying its best, however, noted that the Police inspector-general needs to be concerned and use exclusive privileged resources of his office to assist in tracking the criminals behind the dastard killing of the Professor of Forest Economics and Urban Forestry.
According to the ASUU leader, “the Union awaits the arrest, parade and prosecution of the killers of professor Opeyemi Ajewole.
His family needs to experience that justice is served on those behind his gruesome killing. And by so doing, the entire people of Nigeria will have more trust in our policing system.
“As we bury professor Ajewole this week without, yet the arrest of his killers, we are reminded of how insecure Nigerians are. The police and the intelligence community need to rise up and bring the perpetrators to book. The killings of hapless Nigerians must stop. The lives of Nigerians must matter and must be accounted for by those saddled with those responsibilities.”
While welcoming the newly posted Commissioner of Police, Adebola Hamzat to Oyo State, the Union charged the new police boss to re-energise the quest to track, arrest and prosecute the killers of Professor Ajewole.
He said that though the university community grieves over the death, it will still celebrate the gallantry and contributions late professor Ajewole made to Academic community and the Union with a special Congress of the Union in his honour.
The burial programmeof late Professor Ajewole began on Sunday 2nd July, 2023, with a candle light procession to the Trenchard Hall of the Premier University, a Christian wake today, July 3rd and lying-in-state in the university on Tuesday, 4th July, 2023.
