Sunday Adeyemo, widely known as Sunday Igboho, the prominent Yoruba Nation agitator, has finally shed light on the harrowing moments he narrowly escaped capture during the high-profile raid on his Ibadan residence in July 2021. The operation, executed by the Department of State Services in the dead of night, followed a prolonged period of friction between the activist and the federal government under the late President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking during a visit from a delegation of Muslim leaders to his home this past Monday, Igboho offered a firsthand account of the chaos that unfolded at his Soka residence in the early hours of July 1, 2021. Contrary to widespread speculation about his whereabouts, he insisted that he remained inside the premises throughout the entire ordeal, yet somehow managed to evade the security operatives who had surrounded the building.
Describing the terrifying sequence of events, Igboho recounted that the silence of the night was shattered around 1:30 am. He recalls hearing strange noises and attempting to identify the source, only for the room to be met with immediate, heavy gunfire. He vividly remembered the sound of the operatives scaling the perimeter fence and the deafening explosion as they used dynamite to shatter the window burglar bars to force their way inside. At that moment, he was undressed, but as the gravity of the situation hit him, he quickly threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt. He confessed that he faced a split-second internal struggle between the urge to surrender and the terrifying realization that doing so would likely cost him his life.
The activist detailed a frantic scene where he confronted the intruders verbally, demanding to know the reason for the raid, even as they opened fire in his direction without a clear target. He described how the operatives eventually forced their way into his personal quarters, at one point holding his personal assistant, Dudu, at gunpoint to coerce him into opening the door. Addressing the bizarre rumors that persisted long after the incident—specifically the claim that he used supernatural powers to transform into a cat to flee—Igboho dismissed them as complete fabrications. He pointed out that the security team had actually killed a cat during the raid, erroneously believing it was him, and even went as far as bringing in a fake herbalist to perform rituals to locate him while he was watching the entire scene unfold from within the house.
Reflecting on the human cost of the night, Igboho expressed deep sorrow over the death of his partially blind brother, who was gunned down by the operatives under the mistaken belief that he was an attacker. According to him, these casualties were taken away by the security team as proof of their operation. Ultimately, he attributed his survival to divine intervention, noting that the outcome had been foretold by Muslim clerics who had prayed for him and warned him of an impending danger, a vision he believes was mitigated by their spiritual foresight.
