FUOYE class rep dies after truck accident while biking to campus

A student of the Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) has died after being involved in an accident.

The road mishap involving his bike and a truck occurred on Friday along Ikole secretariat road in Ekiti state.

The victim, identified as Taiwo Gbolahan, is the class governor of the Quantity Survey department at the varsity.

FUOYE is situated in Oye-Ekiti in the Oye LGA of the state and Ikole-Ekiti, splitting the varsity into two campuses.

Both campuses are 23.7 km apart, often taking the students and lecturers 37 minutes to commute between them.

A student source who spoke to TheCable on the incident said Gbolahan was instructed by one of their lecturers to submit the assignments for the class before 9 am, prompting him to mount a bike in a bid to beat the deadline.

“MTH 101 is for all faculties, including Engineering, Environmental Management & Design, and Agriculture. The victim in Quantity Survey, in Environmental Management. He’s the governor of his department,” the source said.

“The lecturer of MTH 101 insisted that we submit the works as early as 9 am yesterday. The rep had to rush to school as early as 6:21 am to gather the assignments from the class at the Ikare-Ekeiti campus.

“It was when he made for the Oye-Ekiti campus that he was killed in the bike accident on the expressway. The school has said nothing about overstretching the students by making them submit things at Oye that early.

“We’ve repeatedly asked that the school management create a shuttle for us to halt the use of bikes on campus.”

On the nature of the crash, a source said the commercial bike Gbolahan hailed attempted to overtake a trailer truck when the victim’s backpack got stuck to the truck’s shaft, pulling the course rep off the two-wheeler in a fatal crash.

“The bike man didn’t wait. He ran away after the accident. We haven’t heard much from the lecturer, who cited a  school meeting as the reason for the early submission, or the school since the Gbolahan’s death,” the student added.

TheCable contacted the Ekiti state police command and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in the state, both of whose spokespersons had no information on the road accident as of when this report was filed.

FUOYE declares lecture-free day, moves to convene meeting on case

TheCable contacted Foluso Ogunmodede, the FUOYE media spokesperson, who stated that the school authority commiserates with the family of the deceased and is looking to convene a management meeting on the matter.

“We’ve declared today lecture-free to honour the deceased since we’ve been taking lectures on Saturdays to cover for the strikes. The university medical team did their best to save his life,” the PRO said.

“After much effort, we rushed him to the Federal Medical Centre in Ido where he was confirmed dead. It’s a big loss to the university. The management will meet and release an official statement about it.”

Questioned on the grievances of the sources who spoke to TheCable on the matter and the motivations of the deceased, Ogunmodede said it is still unclear why the student involved chose to hail a commercial bike.

“There are commercial vehicles plying the roads from Ikole and Oye to Ado and other neighboring communities. Why he chose to pick a bike is still unclear. Ikole to Oye should be a 15-minute drive. It’s a highway.

“There are university shuttles too. I’m not aware of what happened in his department or what he intended to do on the Oye campus. It’s a loss to the university. We will meet and decide on how to relate the tragedy to his parents.”

Varsity SUG blames administrative failure for Gbolahan’s death

The student union government (SUG) at FUOYE, while confirming that it has initiated efforts to meet with the management, blamed the administrative failure in the university for the student’s fatal crash.

“As a union, we will further demand total cancellation of the administrative failure that was a source of his death (taking the assignment to Oye for submission),” the SUG’s media director said.

“There are 2 Campuses in FUOYE, Oye and Ikole campuses respectively. So we have lecturers taking both Oye and Ikole students courses and some reside in Oye, which is the main campus of the university.

“Also, as a Union, we want to lament the bad state of our roads.

“We are calling on both the state and federal government to come to our aid and rehabilitate our damaged roads.

“As we speak, both the union and delegates from the [university] management are on our way to the Ikole campus for an emergency stakeholders meeting.”