Odekunle, Nigeria’s first professor of criminology, dies from COVID-19

Femi Odekunle, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), is dead.

PACAC is headed by Itse Sagay, a professor of law.

TheCable gathered that Odekunle, Nigeria’s first professor of criminology, died at the COVID-19 isolation centre in Gwagalada, Abuja, on Tuesday evening.

At the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation, had said: “A good friend of this government just passed on at 6:30pm.”

It is unclear if Mustapha was referring to Odekunle or another person, but he said discussions were ongoing to help the deceased hours before news of his death broke.

Nigeria is currently experiencing the second wave of the pandemic.

Mustapha had earlier said within one week since Nigeria entered the second wave of infections, 16 out of every 100 tests returned positive.

Within the past two weeks, the daily count of COVID-19 cases recorded a significant rise — increasing to more than 1,000 cases within a 24-hour period.

In  July, Odekunle made the headlines when he kicked against the arrest of Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

He had described Magu’s ordeal as a power play by blocs in the corridor of power.

Odekunle had alleged that Abubakar Malami, minister of justice, is the arrowhead of the bloc that is not really interested in President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight.

A graduate of the University of Ibadan, 1968, he got his PhD in sociology and social psychiatry from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in the United States, in 1974.

Odekunle, who was an aide to Oladipo Diya, deputy to Sani Abacha, former military dictator, was arrested over a phantom coup.

He lectured in different universities but spent years at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna state.