OAU professor Adegbehingbe still missing
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.
