Lawyer: Beninese police beat, handcuff Sunday Igboho despite being in cell

Ibrahim Salami, a Cotonou-based lawyer of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho says the police in the Republic of Benin beat the political enforcer and also handcuff him despite detaining him in a locked cell.

Salami said this during a Facebook Live Interview with BBC News Yoruba on Saturday, July 24, 2021.

He said the way the police are treating Igboho makes eating and movement within the cell difficult for him.

He said, “We are five lawyers handling his case. When we visited Sunday Adeyemo at the police station, he was not beaten but what they did that is alien to the law here is that they handcuffed him inside the police cell after locking the cell. This makes eating and movement within the cell difficult for him to the extent that someone has been helping him in this regard.

“Apart from being a lawyer, I am also a professor of law at a university here in Benin Republic. Part of what we teach our students is human rights. Human rights frown at the action of the police.

“I called the attention of the police commander and the prosecutor to this but still nothing changed. At the moment, Sunday Igboho’s hands are in chains at the police station. This is not good at all.”

The lawyer also said the Nigerian Government’s representatives told the court that Igboho is a gunrunner who tried to divide Nigeria.

Days after going into hiding on July 1, after operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) raided his home, shot and arrested some of the occupants and uncovered weaponry, Igboho was arrested at an airport in Cotonou on the night of Monday, July 19.