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OAU Professor Adegbehingbe Still Missing

Published

7 years ago

May 6, 2019

Optimum Times

OAU Professor Adegbehingbe Still Missing

Professor Olayinka Adegbehingbe: kidnapped on Sunday

Prof. Olayinka Adegbehingbe, an orthopaedic surgeon of the Obafemi Awolowo University is still missing and there has been no contact between the university and his abductors.

Adegbehingbe was kidnapped on Sunday on the Ife-Ibadan highway by yet to be identified men.

The OAU Public Relations Officer, Mr. Aboidun Olanrewaju, said that the entire university community and the family of Adegbehingbe are seriously searching for him.

Olanrewaju stated further that it was saddening that a cool headed and a renowned professor would be kidnapped.

He hoped that with the steps taken by the Commissioner of Police, Mrs Abiodun Ige and Area Commander, Ife Area Command, DCP Funso Adegboye, the orthopedics surgeon would soon be released.

“It is true that one of our lecturers, Prof Yinka Adegbehinde was abducted on his way to Ife from Ibadan yesterday.

“Actually, he was abducted along Ikire-Ikoyi Akpomo axis of the road and immediately the university authorities got in touch with the Osun state command of the Nigerian Police and the honourable commissioner of police herself led a team of anti-kidnapping squad to the scene of the incident. They combed the entire area, all the bushes around, trying to find the abducted lecturer, but till now we are hoping that the Lord will give them the strength and the professionalism to find the man for us and hand him over to us alive”.

The OAU spokesman also appealed to Professor Adegbehingbe’s abductors to please release the lecturer so he can get back to his duties.

Bernice, Adegbehinde’s wife, who is also a professor has not yielded to interview requests.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the egghead was kidnapped on his way from Lagos to Ife at Ikire around 9:00pm on Sunday in the presence of his wife.

Adegbehingbe is a Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon.

After graduating in Medicine at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife, he completed his residency in Orthopaedics and Trauma at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile Ife.

His clinical practice is in Paediatric Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Oncology.

Adegbehingbe is actively involved in research on the Ponseti Clubfoot treatment, Birth Trauma, and Radiation Effects and Environmental Factors in cancer.

In January this year, the professor delivered the 331st inaugural lecture at OAU. In his paper “That I may Live and Walk: Feasibility of the Impossibility’, he said Nigeria has been adjudged by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a country with the most unsafe roads in Africa.-NAN

It would be recalled that gunmen had abducted Yinka Adegbehingbe, a Professor at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Sunday evening.

The Professor was kidnapped near Ikire on the Ife-Ibadan expressway around 9pm on Sunday.

Adegbehingbe, who was travelling with his wife, was on his way from Lagos to Ife when armed men stopped his vehicle and abducted him.

Moses Olafare, director of media, ooni of Ife palace, confirmed the abduction, saying he spoke with someone who witnessed the kidnap.

He added that he also spoke with the wife of the lecturer who was at the police station as at the time he called.

“I received a call from one of the passengers who witnessed the abduction of Prof Yinka Adegbehingbe. Immediately I received that information, I called OAU PRO. I also called Ife area commander of Nigeria Police Force and later the Commissioner of Police,” he told reporters.

“CP told me she was aware of the incident and requested for more details from our end and we gave that. I later spoke to the wife of Prof. Adegbehingbe. She was in a police station around Apomu when I spoke to her.”

Abiodun Olanrewaju, OAU public relations officer, has also confirmed the abduction.

The high rate of kidnappings across the country has been a source of concern, with the opposition accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of not doing enough to tackle the situation.

Fielding questions from reporters when he returned to the country after a 10-day trip to the UK, Buhari said Mohammed Adamu, acting inspector-general of police, had lost weight because of his efforts to tackle insecurity.
-TheCable

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