Soyinka Visits Igboho, Two Others In Benin Republic

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Sunday visited Seme border enroute Cotonou, the capital city of the Republic of Benin, to see Yoruba nation activist, Mr Sunday Adeyemo, popularly called Sunday Igboho.

Igboho advocated Yoruba nation to resist tyranny of Fulani herdsmen against his people in Oyo State.

Gun-toting officials of the Department of State Services on July 1, 2021, raided the Ibadan, Oyo State, home of Igboho, killed two and arrested 12 of his aides.

The activist later fled to the Republic of Benin but was arrested alongside his wife, Ropo, on July 19, 2021, by the International Criminal Police Organisation at the Cadjehoun Airport in Cotonou on their way to Germany.

Ropo was later freed and Igboho faced charges bordering on illegal migration and he sought asylum in the West African country to evade Federal Government’s request for his extradition to face allegations of stockpiling arms which he denied.

In March 2022, he was released from detention in Benin Republic on two conditions: he won’t hold any rally and can’t leave Cotonou.

An authoritative source told our correspondent that the playwright was mobbed by a crowd while waiting to complete immigration formalities and repeatedly asked where he was headed.

The PUNCH gathered that the essayist responded that he was on a visit to Igboho, to “break the Muslim fast with him.”

 

PUNCH correspondent further learnt that when Soyinka was reminded that neither he nor Ighoho is a Muslim, he stated that it made no difference.

He added that he had wished to see Igboho, to sympathise with his predicament.

Soyinka Noted, “Ramadan is as good as any other season to express non-denominational solidarity.”

 

In August last year, the elder statesman at a media interaction in Lagos urged the government of the Republic of Benin to release Igboho to continue his journey, noting that the activist committed no crime against Nigeria.

 

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