Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, says attack on the Ibadan residence of Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho, is a disturbing legacy of military dictator in Nigeria.
Speaking when he featured on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Monday, Falana described the invasion of Sunday Igboho’s residenc by operatives of Department of State Services, DSS, as a “nocturnal coup”.
The DSS last Thursday invaded Sunday Igboho’s residence, gunning down two of his allies.
Subsequently, the secret police, through its spokesman, Peter Afunanya, while addressing newsmen in Abuja, declared Igboho wanted over alleged activities threatening the common existence of Nigeria.
Reacting to the development, Falana averred the DSS action was illegal, noting that there is no law in Nigeria that allows DSS to arrest somebody in the dead of the night.
He said the controversy that trail the invasion would have been avoided had the DSS behaved like civilised organisations.
He said, “You can’t have a situation where nocturnal arrests are made in a state as if you are planning a coup. Take Ibadan for instance, the invasion of the home of Igboho happened in the night and for all-day, everybody was wondering who did and that seven people were killed. People were arrested and abducted at 2am, the governor of the state wasn’t aware. So, everybody was trying to find out, calling security agencies, only for the State Security Service to issue a very provocative statement after almost 12 hours to say, ‘We did it, we killed two people, we raided a house’. Somebody attempted to evade arrest and you killed two people? The governor of the state wasn’t aware?
“In these days of kidnappings, anybody can come to your house in the night and arrest you. And these are guys who don’t wear uniforms.”
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“There is no provision, unless a crime is being committed in the night; you cannot go there and arrest. In this case, you are required by law to bring a search warrant. In this case, there was no search warrant, nobody took an inventory.
“Now, Sunday Adeyemo has said I didn’t have any gun in my house. Yet, the SSS paraded guns and other ammunition. All the controversies would have been unnecessary if the SSS had behaved like a modern, civilised agency.
“These are very dangerous legacies of military dictatorship in our country.”
