Operatives of the Department of State Services carried out a midnight attack on the residence of Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho, in the Soka area of Ibadan, Oyo State, The PUNCH has learnt.
A top security source, who pleaded anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to speak on the matter, told The PUNCH on Thursday that the secret police operated in Sunday Igboho’s residence in Ibadan early Thursday.
“The DSS operated in his (Sunday Igboho) house in Ibadan on Thursday morning,” the security source confided in our correspondent.
The source, however, could not give details on whether any of Igboho’s aides were arrested, killed or injured during the raid.
Efforts to speak with DSS spokesman, Peter Afunaya, proved abortive as of the time of filing this report.
However, our correspondent sent Afunaya a number of text messages seeking to know whether the secret police indeed raided the Ibadan residence of Igboho but the DSS spokesman neither deny nor confirm the report.
“Got into a meeting, will revert to you afterwards. Good afternoon,” Afunaya wrote in one of his text messages to our correspondent on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the activist’s spokesman, Olayomi Koiki, said his principal was not arrested during the raid. “He (Sunday Igboho) is currently safe,” the aide said.
Thursday attack was one of the attacks on Igboho in the last six months. On January 26, 2021, some faceless hoodlums reportedly attacked the Soka residence of Igboho also in Ibadan and gutted the house.
The PUNCH had also earlier reported that pandemonium broke out on February 26, 2021 along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when Igboho and his supporters were on their way to meet with 93-year-old Afenifere chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo.
In a viral video, a shirtless Igboho was seen with his men daring security operatives and throwing expletives at the operatives identified as men of the Department of State Services but the attempt failed and the DSS subsequently denied the attempted arrest.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, had also said the then Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, ordered the arrest of the rights activist but many Nigerians had condemned such move, insisting that the security agencies should instead summon popular Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who has been seen hobnobbing with bandits in the forests of Zamfara and Niger States of late.
