Management of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State have shut down the zoological garden on the institution’s campus following the killing of a veterinary technologist, Mr Olabode Olawuyi, by a nine-year-old lion on Monday.
According to The PUNCH, the Chairman of the National Association of Non-Academic Staff of Universities, OAU branch, Mr Wole Odewumi, confirmed the development.
He explained that the veterinary technologist was attacked by the lion while he was attempting to free a woman, who was first attacked by the lion.
Odewumi said, “I spoke to some of his colleagues, and they told me what happened. The lion attacked a woman first. The woman is also a staff working at the zoo.
“The deceased intervened to free the woman from the lion. He must have assumed that the lion would recognise him.
“His intervention to free the woman must have infuriated the animal. The lion left the woman and attacked him squarely.
“After he was freed from the lion’s grip, they rushed him to the health centre on campus here. He however died before he got there. But the second person that was attacked, a woman, is still on admission receiving treatment presently.”
