Sunday Adeyemo, the Yoruba Nation agitator who is also known as Sunday Igboho, has instituted a legal action at the Federal High Court in Ibadan against the Attorney General of the Federation and the Department of State Services asking forN5bn in damages over the night raid on his July 1 by DSS operatives.
Igboho urged the court to compel the AGF, the DSS, and the Director-General of the DSS, to pay him N500m as a remedy for the damage done to his cars and house and another N5bn as “exemplary and/or aggravated damages for breaching the applicant’s fundamental rights in the course of the illegal and malicious invasion of his residence.”
Chief Yomi Alliyu (SAN), Igboho’s counsel, filed the suit on behalf of his client, who has been in detention in Benin Republic following his arrest there on Monday.
Igboho declares in the suit that the raid on his residence in the Soka area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital led to the shooting to death of two of his aides and the arrest of 12 other by officials of the DSS. The raid, he contends, was malicious and also amounted to a violation of his fundamental human rights.
Giving further details of the events of that July 1 night, the separatist leader averred that operatives of the spy police arrived his house around 1 am that day, and that “without announcing who they were or asking the applicant (Igboho) to open his gate, shot their way through, killing two people, including an elderly Imam doing Tahjud (vigil), shooting at cars, thereby destroying them and not sparing animals, like cats and dogs in total violation of the intendments of the fundamental human rights provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Act.”
He further averred that for the next two hours, the DSS officials shot through the ceiling and roof of his house, thereby depriving him “the quiet enjoyment of his house for the period of the armed invasion of the said property.”
In his submission, Igboho asked the court to declare that the AGF and the DSS, through the said invasion of his residence violated his right and trampled on the nation’s constitution.
Igboho, who is married to a German lady, Ropo, is also asking the court to compel the defendants to his belongings which they allegedly took away during the operation.
The items, according to his submission, included N2m in cash, €1,000, travel documents belonging to him and his family members, gold jewelry and wristwatches, an I-Phone 12 mobile phone, Samsung mobile phone, and other items yet to be ascertained.
The separatist movement leader also wants the court to compel the defendants to tender a public apology to him, to be published in two national dailies, The PUNCH and The Nation newspapers.
