Igboho asks court to declare Yoruba Nation campaign legal

YORUBA Nation agitator, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly called Sunday Igboho on Friday filed a suit at the Oyo State High Court in Ibadan, demanding a declaration that the campaign for self-determination by Yoruba people in Nigeria is legal and a fundamental right. 

In the suit filed on his behalf by his lawyer, Chief Yomi Aliyu, SAN, Igboho sought a declaration that the Federal Government’s resolve to prevent him from propagating his belief in “Yoruba Nation” in association with others was against his fundamental rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and association.” 

Respondents in the suit are Attorney General of the Federation, the State Security Service (SSS) and Director, State Security Service, Oyo State. Some of the reliefs sought by Igboho are: A declaration that the respondents resolute in preventing the applicant from propagating his belief in association with other like minds in creating a Yoruba Nation and or Oduduwa Republic for his Indigenous Yoruba People and hunting him with gun with a view to arresting him dead or alive when he has not called for war in achieving same is against his fundamental rights to freedom of thought, conscience and association since campaign for self-determination is recognised by Nigerian law and international treaties of organizations to which Nigeria belongs. 

A declaration that the applicant and his Yoruba indigenous people have unquestionable and or inalienable fundamental right to peacefully campaign and seek for self-determination of Yoruba tribe in Nigeria and lobby the legislature to amend the CFRN, 1999 as guaranteed by Article 20 of African Charter on Human and Peoples Right (Ratification and Enforcement) Act. Laws of Federation, 2010, and Articles 3, 4, 7, & 18 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People made at its 107th Plenary Meeting of Thursday 13th September, 2007, thereby insulating campaign for self-determination from criminal culpability. 

A declaration that apart from violating the fundamental right of the applicant to fair hearing, it is unequitable and unfair for the 2nd & 3rd Respondents to exhibit guns, ammunitions and other dangerous weapons and incriminating documents in public and claim that same belong to the applicant when their officers in actual fact shot their way into the house of the applicant situate, lying and being at Igboho Villa, 1, Dalag Street, Off Soka Bus Stop, Soka Area, Off Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ibadan, without subjecting themselves and their convoy of vehicles to prior search by the applicant who neither signed any inventory nor search warrant containing inventory to that effect. 

A declaration that the media trial of the applicant by the 2nd & 3rd Respondents in exhibiting prohibited and/or illegal items as Applicant’s before the press and live television is usurpation of judicial power reserved by CFRN, 1999, for courts and violently violates the fundamental right of the applicant to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law recognized y the said Constitution and properly constituted for that purpose. 

A declaration that invading and or blocking the assets of the applicant and putting no debit order on his bank accounts is a violation of his fundamental right to own property and wealth guaranteed by CFRN, 1999, and Article 21 of African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Laws of Federation, 2010. 

An order of injunction restraining the respondents, their agents, privies and associates in other security forces and or anybody acting on their behalf and or instructions from arresting, detaining, molesting, harassing and/or in any way interfering with his right to personal liberty, freedom of movement and peaceful enjoyment of his property without fear of the invasion of his home by the respondents. 

He also demanded that the court should compel the respondents jointly and severally to pay him N500.5 billion made up of the sum of N500 million as special damages for the damage done to his car and residence at Soka, Ibadan and the sum of N500 billion being exemplary and/ or aggravated damages for malicious invasion of his Soka residence. No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.

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