Nigerian separatist released from Benin prison
LAGOS - A Nigerian separatism activist who fled the country to avoid arrest was given conditional release from prison in neighbouring Benin eight months after he was detained there, his lawyer said on yesterday.
Sunday Igboho, who advocates for independence for the southwestern Yoruba people, had been detained in Benin’s commercial capital Cotonou on accusations of “criminal association”.
“Beninese justice ordered his release on Monday afternoon under court supervision.
He was released from prison shortly before 10 pm,” lawyer Ibrahim Salami told AFP.
“The case has not been dismissed. He is still being prosecuted for criminal association.”
Igboho, whose real name is Sunday Adeyemo, has no right to leave Benin, his lawyer said.
Nigeria has been seeking his extradition since July 2021, when he fled following a raid on his home in the city of Ibadan. Officials said they had found military equipment and other weapons at the house.
Police at the time accused Igboho and his associates of planning to wage a violent insurrection against the Nigerian state.
He was arrested in Benin while attempting to board a flight for Germany.
“He will now be able to access appropriate health care,” his lawyer said.
“When his home was attacked in Nigeria, he jumped from the second floor and injured his rib cage.”
Igboho had demanded independence for southwestern Nigeria for the Yoruba people following violence he attributed to Fulani herders in his region.
Nigeria has a population of more than 210 million, split into more than 250 ethnic groups.
The main ones are the Hausa-Fulani in the north, the Igbo in the south-east and the Yoruba in the south-west. Communal tensions often flare up.
Another separatist leader, Nnamdi Kanu, whose Indigenous People of Biafra calls for a separate state for the Igbo people in the southeast, is currently on trial in Abuja on treason charges.
Kanu was arrested overseas and flown back to the country last June.
Nigerian officials have given few details but Kanu’s lawyers said he was illegally detained in Kenya.
Southeast Nigeria has seen a recent spike in violence.
More than 130 police officers and other security personnel have been killed by gunmen over the last year, according to a local media tally.
Separatist movements in Nigeria are particularly sensitive.
A unilateral declaration of independence in 1967 by Igbo army officers in the southeast sparked a 30-month civil war.
More than one million people died, most of them Igbos, from the impact of conflict, hunger and disease.