Popular academic, writer and activist, Dr. Festus Iyayi, is dead. He died this morning in a car crash on his way to Kano to participate in tomorrow’s National Executive Council Meeting of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) expected to declare an end to the five-month strike that has paralysed academic activities on Nigeria’s university campuses.

Born in 1947, in Ugbegun in Ishan, Edo State, Dr. Iyayi was president of ASUU from 1986, but in 1988, the union was briefly banned and Iyayi was detained.

A well known author with four books to his credit (Violence, The Contract, Heroes, and Awaiting Court Martial), Dr. Iyayi in 1988 won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature for his book Heroes.

•Photo shows late Festus Iyayi.