The Yoruba Leaders’ Forum (YLF) has described the fatal attack on the home of Yoruba rights activist, Mr. Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho as cowardly, barbaric and unfortunate, especially coming under a democratically elected government.
YLF asked what Igboho’s offence was to have warranted a Gestapo-style attack on his home where seven of his aides were killed and his wife abducted by men of the Army and Directorate of State Services (DSS) late in the night.
In a statement signed by the group’s coordinator, George Olufemi Ogunjimi, the YLF reminded President Muhammadu Buhari that this style of harassing and intimidating people, popular during the military regimes of which Buhari was part of, is not acceptable in a democracy.
“We are amazed that this government could stoop so low as to send its goons to attack a defenceless citizen, one of whom they are paid to protect. In the end, as usual, they left sorrow, tears and blood as people were killed in the encounter,” the YLF statement said.
The group wondered how a peaceful agitation for self-government spear-headed by Adeyemo could be tagged a crime. “Even if it is a crime, is the deadly attack on a defenceless citizen justified?” the group reasoned.
“President Buhari should wake up, expunge the barbaric military thinking and put on the toga of a democratically-elected President, who swore to defend the constitution and protect the lives and properties of Nigerians,” YLF said in the statement.
On Sunday, June 27, at about 1:30 a.m., armed men in Army and the DSS uniforms stormed Sunday Igboho’s house at Soka area in Ibadan, Oyo State in 15 vehicles.
It was reported that at least seven people were killed, properties worth millions of naira destroyed and Sunday Igboho’s wife, as well as an unidentified number of his aides were abducted by the security men.