An elder statesman and former Registrar of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Pa William Attoye, has cleared the air over the hijacking of Nigeria Airways aircraft by four students of the institution during the struggle for the revalidation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
 
According to Attoye, in an interview, the four students of FUTA, Tunde Adeagbo, Tunde Ibikunle, Tunji ‘Light’ Ariyomo and Niran Kweminu, were wrongfully accused by the military government, and clamped in detention for the alleged offence 31 years ago.
 
The retired university administrator said the youngsters primarily implicated in the plane hijack plot, namely: Richard Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Benneth Oluwadaisi, and Kenny Rasaq-Lawal – all members of the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy (MAD) – were not students of FUTA.
 
He said the various anti-military rule actions, which involved addressing peaceful students’ congresses by the likes of Adeagbo in many tertiary institutions, as well as covert pro-democracy information dissemination and sensitisation across campuses in the old Ondo State, initiated by Ariyomo as part of an emerging campus journalism trend, made the military beam its searchlight on the students, and the four students were arrested and put in a detention camp somewhere in Oke-Eda in Akure, the state capital.
   
Attoye said the erstwhile students of FUTA were alleged to have been part of the plane hijack plot despite having a proof alibi that established and limited their daily routines to within the old Ondo State, which included the present Ekiti State.
 
Similarly, a retired professor of English and Communication Studies at FUTA, Bayo Aborisade, who was reportedly the leader of the FUTA anti-military rule intelligential at the time, narrated how the students were mobilised for the advancement of democracy.
 
Aborisade said it was unfortunate that “our students were framed up by the military as plane hijackers due to their stand as anti-military actors.  He corroborated Attoye that none of those arrested in Niamey were students of FUTA.