Yoruba Nation campaigner Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has recounted how he escaped arrest during the Department of State Services (DSS) raid on his Ibadan home in July 2021, saying he stayed inside throughout the operation.
Igboho spoke on Monday while hosting Muslim clerics at his Ibadan residence. He said the operatives searched the house for him but failed to find him.
He claimed the DSS team mistook a cat for him and later brought in what he called a “fake herbalist” to perform rituals in a bid to locate him.
“When they came around 1:30 am. I heard a sound and was inquiring who it was; they started shooting at the room. They heard my voice. When they finally scaled the fence in, they planted a dynamite on the burglary, and everything completely fell apart. That was where they entered. I was naked, but upon hearing their voice, I wore a jean and shirt. One mind was telling me to surrender to them; the other was telling me not to surrender, else I would be killed.
“So at a point, it was looking like I was scared of them; then I immediately yelled, inquiring what had happened and why they had come to pick me up. So they started shooting at close range without even seeing me.
“When they entered and were screaming that I opened the door, they pointed a gun at Dudu (my personal assistant)’s head. And he kept begging me not to shoot while knocking on the door. There, I suspected. They forced the door open. People were even lying that they shot me and I ran away with my intestines out.”
Igboho also rejected claims that he turned into a cat.
“I didn’t turn into a cat. They even killed it, thinking it was me. They even brought a fake herbalist who was just making an incantation and performing a ritual. I was in the house watching them, but they didn’t see me.
“There was this my brother who was partially blind and came out; upon sighting him, they shot him, thinking that he wanted to attack them. They took the corpses away as evidence that they truly invaded my home. So it was God that saved me after a prayer that some Muslim clerics did in my house, forestalling a bad vision they claimed to have seen on me.”
The DSS raided Igboho’s Soka residence on July 1, 2021, after months of friction with former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Igboho had earlier issued an ultimatum to some Fulani residents in parts of Oyo State, accusing them of kidnapping and other crimes. He later called for criminal elements among the Fulani to be expelled from Yorubaland and stepped up his campaign for an independent Yoruba Nation.
The Federal Government said his activities threatened national security and moved to arrest him.
The DSS later said it recovered firearms and ammunition from his home and arrested 13 associates. It also said two aides were killed in an exchange of gunfire.
Igboho later fled Nigeria and was arrested in Cotonou, Benin Republic, while trying to travel to Germany. After months of legal proceedings, he was released and has remained in self-imposed exile in Benin Republic, where he continues his Yoruba Nation campaign.
