Former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities , Dr. Festus Iyayi is dead.

He died Tuesday morning in a car crash on his way to Kano to participate in a National Executive Council Meeting of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) expected to declare an end to the over 4-month strike.

He was a writer known for his radical and sometimes tough stance on social and political issues.

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

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.