From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
A combined team of personnel of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Department of State Security (DSS) and Operation Burst – a joint security outfit of Oyo State Government, on Friday attempted to arrest the popular Yoruba activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, fondly called Sunday Igboho.
The attempt to arrest him was made by the security personnel at Guru Maharaj area, near Ibadan Toll Gate, when Igboho was on his way to Lagos. Sources said he was travelling to Lagos to hold a meeting with a prominent Yoruba leader over reasons that have not been made public.
Saturday Sun can authoritatively reveal that Sunday Igboho had stormed Ibarapaland in Oyo State on Friday January 15, this year, over incessant killings, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, rape and destruction of farmland by people suspected to be herdsmen. On the occasion he gave the criminal elements in Ibarapaland a seven-day quit notice.
On the expiration of the ultimatum on Friday, January 22, Igboho and his followers, went back to Ibarapa, though he only addressed a large crowd of Ibarapa people at Igangan Town Hall and left the town. But some aggrieved youth of Igangan, one of the seven principal towns that make up Ibarapa, attacked the settlement of the Sarkin Fulani of Igangan and Oyo State, Alhaji Abdulkadir Saliu.
According to the evicted Saliu, his two houses and other houses in the settlement as well as 11 cars in his compound were either razed or vandalized. He also said he lost over 200 cows to the attack. He has since relocated with his family to Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State. The youth had alleged Saliu of complicity in the insecurity situation in Ibarapaland.
But a video clip of the incident, which was made available to Saturday Sun on Friday evening revealed that the security personnel, having been probably monitoring Igboho’s movement in the recent time, laid an ambush for him at Guru Maharaj area on Ibadan-Lagos Expressway. The security agents were said to have barricaded the road and succeeded in stopping Igboho’s convoy.
Igboho also resisted the attempt to arrest him. He removed his shirt, remaining only his trousers and walked on the road in protest of how the security personnel laid siege for him on the road. He was quoted to have said if the security personnel did not have ulterior motive, they should have invited him to their office, instead of laying siege for him on a highway.
Details later