Sunday Igboho files N5bn suit against DSS and attorney-general over raid on his Ibadan home

YORUBA Nation agitator Sunday Adeyemo has filed a N5bn ($12,131,200) lawsuit against the attorney-general of the federation and the Department of State Security (DSS) asking for damages over the invasion of his house in Ibadan on July 1.

Early this month, men of the DSS raided Mr Adeyemo's Ibadan home, killing two of his aides and arresting 13 others. Although Mr Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho managed to escape, he home was turned inside out with the DSS seizing items including his international passport, claiming he was stockpiling weapons.

Mr Igboho, who is currently in detention in Benin Republic, where he fled to, filed the suit at the federal high court in Ibadan yesterday through his counsel, Chief Yomi Alliyu.  In the suit, he is contending that the invasion of his house in the Soka area of Ibadan was not only malicious but also amounted to a violation of his fundamental human rights.

Chief Alliyu told the court: “Without announcing who they were or asking the applicant  to open his gate, they 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.”

Mr Igboho added that for two hours, the DSS operatives 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. He is urging the court to declare that the attorney-general and the DSS violated his rights and trampled on the nation’s constitution.

In addition, Mr Igboho wants the court to order the defendants to return his personal belongings, which they allegedly carted away during the operations. He listed the items to include N2m cash, €1,000, travel documents belonging to him and his family members, gold jewellery and wristwatches, a I-Phone 12 mobile phone, a Samsung mobile phone and other items yet to be ascertained.

In addition, Mr Igboho is urging the court to compel the attorney-general and the DSS to also pay him N500m to cover for the damage done to his cars and house and another N5bn as exemplary and/or aggravated damages for breaching his fundamental rights in the course of the illegal and malicious invasion of his residence. He also wants the court to compel the defendants to tender a public apology to him, to be published in two national dailies - Punch and The Nation.

Furthermore, Mr Igboho wants the court to declare that he has an unquestionable and inalienable fundamental right to peacefully campaign and seek for self-determination of Yoruba tribe in Nigeria and lobby the legislature to amend the 1999 constitution. He wants the court to also declare that it is illegal for the DSS and the attorney-general to be hunting him with a view to arresting him because he is propagating his belief in association with other like minds to create a Yoruba Nation/Oduduwa Republic for his indigenous Yoruba people.

In addition, Mr Igboho also wants the court to restrain the defendants and their agents from further harassing him or causing his bank accounts to be frozen. For now, the court has yet to fix a date for the hearing of the suit.