Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has said he will not be intimidated by the fresh attempt by the police, the army and the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest him.
He added that any effort to arrest him on Yorubaland will fail.
The PUNCH reports Sunday Igboho as saying this during an interview on Friday, while reacting to the face-off between him and security agents around the Guru Maharaji bus stop along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The Yoruba rights activist, who has been in the news for serving a quit notice on Fulani herdsmen in some parts of the South-West, said he was never invited before they attempted to arrest him.
Sunday Igboho, therefore, stated that he did not know why he was being targeted.
He advised the Federal Government to focus on capturing Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, and invite Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who has been meeting with bandits in recent times.
He said, “I was never invited. They just lay in ambush for me at Guru Maharaji and started shooting. They started shouting, ‘Where is Sunday Igboho?’ I identified myself and asked them what the problem was. They said I was under arrest and I said, ‘For what? On my father’s land? That was how it degenerated.
“When they noticed how tense everywhere was, they fled. They came in four Hilux vans and a Toyota Land Cruiser. There are bandits operating all over the place but people like me who are defending our fatherland are the ones you want to arrest. Why?”
When asked if the police had invited him, he said, “I have not been invited. What have I done to warrant an arrest? Why do they want to arrest me? What have I done?”
On whether he would honour a police invitation if invited, Igboho said, “Go and ask them to invite Gumi and Shekau first before disturbing me. Let them face the bandits instead.”
When asked if he would go into hiding, he said, “What for? I am in the neighbourhood. I cannot run.”
He added that he had returned to his base in Ibadan.
Sunday Igboho said he had done nothing wrong by fighting for the rights of his people.
Meanwhile, Igboho has said the attempt by the security agents to apprehend him on Friday will not stop him from fighting to make his people safe.
Spokesman for the Yoruba rights activist, Oladapo Salami, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, said his principal saw the attempted arrest as one of those things to cow him but that he would not stop defending the rights of his people.
Salami said, “Igboho went to attend a meeting with some Yoruba elders and, on his way coming back, some security agents wanted to apprehend him. The security agents blocked the road with patrol vans of Operation Burst, DSS van and made an attempt to arrest him.
“One of the vehicles used to block him is marked AK 1449. It was Operation Burst vehicle. But they were not able to arrest him. The incident happened before Guru Maharaji Camp.”
Asked why Igboho took off his shirt as seen in a viral video, Salami stated that that was not the issue.
He said, “They made an attempt to arrest him but he has not been arrested; he is at home. Is it a crime to defend one’s people? He is a bit discouraged that some Yoruba persons are also part of the ploy, despite the fact that he is fighting a Yoruba cause.
“But this will not stop him from fighting for the Yoruba people. This is one of the challenges; he will forge ahead. There is no going back on the struggle to make his people safe, especially on their land.”
According to Salami, though the meeting Igboho was to attend had to do with issues confronting Yoruba people, he remains undaunted in his pursuit to fight for his people to be free from criminals.
