Sunday Adeyemo, a self-acclaimed Yoruba activist also known as Sunday Igboho, has revealed that he denied stockpiling arms in house, saying he protect himself with spiritual powers not gun.
Igboho, in a statement by his spokesperson, Olayemi Koiki, on Friday, also said the security operatives planted ammunition in his house in order to persecute him.
Igboho’s house, located in Soka, Ibadan, capital of Oyo State was invaded around 1:00 a.m. on Thursday. During the invasion, his vehicles, including his G-wagon, Prado Jeep, and some valuable properties including furniture and windows were reportedly destroyed.
The attack occurred barely 72 hours before the planned rally in Lagos by Mr Igboho and others to further canvas a Yoruba nation.
The spokesperson of SSS, Peter Afunaya, who confirmed the raid in a press conference in Abuja said a total of seven AK 47 rifles were recovered, alongside pump action guns and 5,000 rounds of ammunition including other weapons.
He said security operatives recovered the weapons after a “hot gun duel between them and Igboho’s guards.”
The SSS also admitted that two of Mr Igboho’s men were killed in the process while a security agent was shot on the right hand and is currently responding to treatment.
Mr Igboho was also declared wanted by the secret police. Many Nigerians including prominent groups have reacted to the development.
Despite a warning by the police in Lagos, organisers of the Yoruba Nation rally vowed to go ahead with their event on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Mr Igboho said he is being persecuted by the federal government for his “resistance to the incessant killings, raping and kidnapping of my people in South-west Nigeria by armed Fulani herdsmen.
“The failure of President Muhammadu Buhariand his government to curb the criminal activities of the murderous herdsmen necessitated my intervention.
“I ordinarily would not have intervened if the government had lived up to its responsibility of securing the Southwest and Nigeria at large from the criminal activities of the President’s ethnic men.
“Of public knowledge, my intervention has not let to any loss of life or bloodshed. My means of curbing criminality is to chase the criminal Fulani herdsmen out of their hideouts in company of the people of the affected communities.
“It is because of the foreseen government persecution that videos of such interventions were transmitted live on social media. Nigerians, the security operatives, and the presidency are aware that I have never moved against the peaceful Fulani’s and other tribes living peacefully in the Southwest. My unjust persecution — for defending my people and community — is therefore surprising and unwarranted.”
Mr Igboho further said the security operatives who invaded his home “either planted the ammunitions being paraded in the media in my home or harvested them from their armoury to frame me. The arms paraded are not mine, they are government magic. I protect myself with traditional powers, not with guns.
“Federal government framed me up and the sequence of events brings the truth bare. Why would the security agents invade my home at night and destroy my surveillance cameras before carrying out their operation if not that they had an ulterior motive?
“In this modern age of technological advancement, why did the security operatives not put on body cameras to record their activities from the point of entry to their time of exit? Their action is a testament that the Buhari regime is incapable of using desperate approaches to silence peaceful social interventions.”
Mr Igboho described himself as a law-abiding citizen “without blemish.”
“I advise President Buhari to, in the interest of Nigerians that voted him to power, order his henchmen to desist from using falsehood and unholy tactics to soil my name. Such energy should be devoted to taming the herdsmen and bandits freely committing heinous crimes across Nigeria with impunity because their kinsman is in power.
“Yoruba people would not be demanding for a nation if the government had lived up to its responsibilities. Self-determination is not a crime and all efforts to silence us and acquire our ancestral land for local and foreign criminal herdsmen will fail.”
