A legal practitioner, Jiti Ogunye on Monday eulogised the late former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Festus Iyayi, describing him as a man who wielded “authority without claiming power”.

Mr. Ogunye, who was the Secretary General of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights the same time late Prof. Iyayi was president, remembered how the academician was begged to assume leadership of the union.

“He was begged practically to be the president of the association,” he said.

Ogunye further noted Prof. Iyayi’s commitment to the well-being of the people, insisting that it was one of the reasons his death generated so many reactions.

Ogunye maintained people’s surprise at Prof. Iyayi’s involvement in negotiating the impasse between the federal government and ASUU despite not being an EXCO of the academic staff ruling body.

He described him as “a first class brain,” insisting that the then military regime wrongly accused the Edo born academician of poisoning the minds of university students.

Iyayi died in an auto crash on his way to Kano for a meeting of the union to consider the possibility of calling off the union’s industrial action.

Prof. Iyayi was buried on Saturday Saturday in his country home at Ugbegun, Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State.