It is exactly five months since Yoruba Nation campaigner, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, has been remanded in a Beninese Prison since his arrest around 8 pm on July 19, 2021, at the Cadjèhoun Airport in Cotonou....CONTINUE READING
Also, the Cour De’appal De Cotonou since the arraignment of Igboho on July 27, 2021, has not sat on the matter, thereby fuelling speculations that the detention of Igboho is laced with political undertones.
His continued incarceration has also doused Yoruba Nation agitations in the last five months as his followers and associates have laid low, suspending secessionist rallies as was done in the South-West before the near-perpetual ordeal of the agitator.
Recall on July 1, 2021, around 2 am, the Department of State Services stormed the Ibadan residence of Igboho in a Gestapo style, killing two of his associates and arresting 12 others.
The luxury cars and the house of the agitator in the Soka area of Oyo State were also riddled with bullets.
The DSS subsequently declared Igboho wanted for allegedly stockpiling arms to destabilise Nigeria under the pretext of secessionist agitation, an allegation he had since denied.
After about three weeks underground, Igboho, 49, found his way to Cotonou and planned to escape to Germany through an Air France Cotonou-Paris-Hamburg flight but the trip was botched as the Interpol at the airport arrested him and his German-citizen wife, Ropo.
The Interpol at the airport had arrested the duo at the behest of the Nigerian Government.
The Beninese Government subsequently arraigned the agitator before the Cour De’appal De Cotonou on migration-related offences and for gunrunning but the court on July 27, 2021, ordered that Ropo be released while Igboho be remanded in prison.
Ropo, it was gathered, now shuttles between Germany where her children are based and Cotonou where her husband is being detained.
The court has not opened the case since then and all efforts by Igboho’s lawyers both in Nigeria and Benin Republic have not yielded in his release as the Buhari regime’s representatives in the Francophone West African country led by Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Benin, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (retd.), continued to push for the extradition of the agitator.
The Interpol at the airport had arrested the duo at the behest of the Nigerian Government.
The Beninese Government subsequently arraigned the agitator before the Cour De’appal De Cotonou on migration-related offences and for gunrunning but the court on July 27, 2021, ordered that Ropo be released while Igboho be remanded in prison.
Ropo, it was gathered, now shuttles between Germany where her children are based and Cotonou where her husband is being detained.
The court has not opened the case since then and all efforts by Igboho’s lawyers both in Nigeria and Benin Republic have not yielded in his release as the Buhari regime’s representatives in the Francophone West African country led by Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Benin, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (retd.), continued to push for the extradition of the agitator.
