I deliberately escaped from my Ibadan home to avoid more casualties during 2021 DSS attack —Igboho

THE Yoruba nation agitator, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as ‘Sunday Igboho’, on Friday night, in his residence at Cotonou, capital of the Republic of Benin, said he deliberately escaped from his Ibadan residence in the heat of the invasion by the agents of the Department of State Service (DSS) and soldiers on July 1. 2021 to prevent more casualties on the part of his aides. 

Adeyemo emphasised that if he had stayed back, apart from his two aides that were shot dead by the security agents, many more of his loyalists, who were inside the residence, located at Soka, off the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, would have been killed. 

It is recalled that operatives of the DSS, and some soldiers in the early hours of July 1, 2021 stormed Igboho’s Ibadan house, located at Soka, off Lagos-Ibadan expressway on July 1, 2021, firing gunshots, which killed two of his aides, injuring others, while 13 other persons were arrested and whisked to Abuja, where they faced trial and were later granted bail by a Federal High Court. 

Speaking to journalists at his Cotonou home, Adeyemo recounted that heavily armed agents of DSS, led by a woman, and accompanied by a number of soldiers waged a full-scale war on him that day. 

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“They cordoned off my house and started shooting. Some of them were strategically positioned on the street that lead to my house from Soka Road,” he recalled. 

According to him, “They shot and forced their way into my premises, shooting sporadically in an encounter that lasted for more than one hour. It was a war and their intention was to kill me. It was God that saved me. Residents of Soka, most especially my neighbours, were gripped with fear. 

“My uncle, who was a Muslim, observing prayer was shot dead right on his praying mat. Another close aide of mine was shot dead. Adeyemo, however, said that despite his escape from Nigeria, trial in Cotonou and release from custody, agitation for the realisation of Yoruba nation is still on and that “very soon I will be back in Nigeria. The Yoruba nation agitation is very much on and we have not abandoned it. I am coming back to Nigeria very soon.” 

He stated: “I am coming back home very soon because Yorubaland is my father’s land and nobody can stop me from returning home. I am coming home.” 

Meanwhile, the leader of the Yoruba Self Determination Groups, otherwise known as Ilana Omo Oodua, Professor Banji Akintoye, who also spoke during a separate interview with journalists in Cotonou, declared that the emergence of the ex-governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) cannot deter or whittle down the movement for the actualisation of Yoruba nation. 

He posited: “Tinubu is my very good brother and kinsman, being a Yoruba, but his victory as the flag bearer of the APC would not stop our agitation to actualise Yoruba nation through a peaceful and legal means. We don’t have anything against the political aspiration of Yorubas, irrespective of party affiliations.” 

While maintaining that Tinubu should not bask in the euphoria of getting his party’s ticket ahead of 2023 presidential poll, Akintoye, who was flanked by another leader of Ilana Oodua, Professor Adekunle Adeniran, noted that the national leader of the APC may be betrayed by or ditched by the Northern power bloc, most especially the APC governors in the North, who vehemently backed power shift to the South.