Yoruba Nation activist Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has shared fresh details of how he escaped arrest during the Department of State Services (DSS) raid on his Ibadan residence in July 2021, claiming security operatives searched the property without finding him despite surrounding the house.

Speaking on Monday while receiving a delegation of Muslim clerics at his residence in Ibadan, Oyo State, Igboho said he remained inside the building throughout the operation and attributed his survival to divine intervention.

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Recounting the early morning raid, Igboho alleged that DSS operatives arrived at about 1:30 a.m., opened fire after hearing his voice and forced their way into the house by blowing open a security barrier with explosives.

According to him, he briefly considered surrendering before deciding against it out of fear for his safety.

“One mind was telling me to surrender to them; the other was telling me not to surrender, else I would be killed,” Igboho said.

He claimed the operatives fired repeatedly without seeing him and later forced one of his aides to persuade him to open the door.

Igboho also dismissed long-standing rumours that he escaped by transforming into a cat, insisting that security operatives mistakenly killed a cat during the search.

“I didn’t turn into a cat. They even killed it, thinking it was me. They even brought a fake herbalist who was just making an incantation and performing a ritual. I was in the house watching them, but they didn’t see me,” he said.

The activist further alleged that one of his relatives, whom he described as partially blind, was shot after emerging during the operation because officers believed he posed a threat.

The latest account revisits one of Nigeria’s most controversial security operations. On July 1, 2021, DSS operatives raided Igboho’s residence in the Soka area of Ibadan after months of heightened tensions between the activist and the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

At the time, the DSS said it recovered firearms and ammunition from the property, arrested 13 of Igboho’s associates and confirmed that two of his aides were killed during what it described as an exchange of gunfire.

Before the raid, Igboho had gained national prominence after issuing ultimatums to some Fulani residents in parts of Oyo State, accusing criminal elements among them of involvement in kidnappings and violent crimes.

He later intensified his campaign for the creation of an independent Yoruba Nation, a movement the Federal Government viewed as a national security concern.

Following the operation, Igboho fled Nigeria and was subsequently arrested in Cotonou, Benin Republic, while attempting to travel to Germany.

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After months of legal proceedings, Beninese authorities released him, and he has since remained in self-imposed exile in the Benin Republic, where he continues to advocate for the Yoruba Nation cause.