A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Yomi Aliyu, has said the return of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, to the country is on course.
Aliyu, who is Igboho’s lawyer, added that he believed that Igboho would have no problem on his return to Nigeria provided he doesn’t resume his campaign for the separation of Yoruba from Nigeria.
Igboho stirred the hornet’s nest when he declared the Yoruba Nation’s sovereignty in March 2021.
He started a campaign to chase killer herdsmen and kidnappers out of the South-West states and went on to call on Yoruba in Hausa/Fulani or Igbo territories to return home.
He, however, fled Nigeria in July 2021 following a nocturnal invasion of his Ibadan residence by the operatives of the Department of State Services.
The attack led to least one death, while some of his belongings were vandalised.
The DSS claimed that seven AK-47 rifles, pump-action guns, and 5,000 rounds of ammunition, charms and other weapons were recovered from his apartment during the invasion.
Igboho, however, denied the claim, while, through his lawyer, he filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit against the DSS, obtaining N20bn damages in a September 16, 2021 court judgment.
The judgment was later set aside by the Court of Appeal in August 2022.
He was later arrested at the Cardinal Bernardin International Airport in Cotonou, Benin Republic while attempting to flee to Germany.
Attempts by the former President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to repatriate him to Nigeria were unsuccessful.
Following Buhari’s exit from government and with a new government in place, Igboho, last month, appeared in a viral video, declaring that he would soon return to Nigeria, saying no one would intimidate him again.
He added that the N20bn awarded against the government justified his actions.
Igboho said, “I am coming back to Ibadan. I’m originally from Oyo State; I’m returning home. So, the Yoruba should not be afraid and nothing will happen; nobody can make the other person afraid.
“My agitation was in place and the question I asked the Nigerian government was in order, and the court justified my demands. Also, the N20bn the Nigerian government owes me will be paid.”
Speaking with The PUNCH on Tuesday on update on the agitator’s return plan, his lawyer said “His return is in view and it depends on the way he presents himself. If he is bent on organising a protest, calling for a nation within a nation or causing unrest in the country, then that would be difficult.”
