‘My son was SUG official not cultist,’ father of TASUED final-year student killed during exams speaks
Bereaved father of a final-year student of Tai Solarin University (TASUED) identified as Hammed Ayinla Fabiyi who was lynched, has denied claims by police that his deceased son was a cult member.
NewsClick Nigeria reports that on July 4, a group of suspected cultists lynched Hammed, who was a 400-level student of history at the Ogun state-owned university.
A witness account and footage had it that the victim was dragged out of an active exam hall and dealt injuries that claimed his life.
Numbering up to 10, the men who assaulted Hammed were dressed in white shirts and fled the scene before campus security arrived.
In its account of the incident, the Ogun state police command said Hammed was a member of the cult group called Eiye.
Omolola Odutola, its PRO, identified his attackers as a group of “about six” men who belonged to a rival confraternity called the Aye.
However, Musibau Fabiyi, a visibly grieving man who identified as the father of the deceased, told TheCable in an interview on Friday that his son never belonged to any cult group but instead identified the victim as an official with TASUED’s student body.
The bereaved, who gave a different account of Hammed’s murder, said his son may have been killed for reasons unrelated to cultism.
“From what I know about my son, he is not a member of any cult. I haven’t even seen him with any dangerous item before,” he said.
“What I can remember is that he told me about some affairs in his school. Since he was a student union executive, he told me that one of the leaders of the union was involved in the misappropriation of funds. He was hellbent on exposing that.
“I think that is where the problem is from. My son is not a member of any cult. If he was, I would have known. I am his father.
“It is unfair how students can do this to themselves. If this was a cultism issue, there would have been threats flying around or cases of retaliation.”
