Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has pleaded with the Benin Republic leaders not to allow the extradition of Sunday Adeyemo, the Yoruba Nation agitator, to Nigeria.

Obasanjo made this plea when he paid a condolence visit to Nicephore Soglo, former President of Benin Republic, who recently lost his wife.

The former President had travelled to Tanzania on August 1 and rerouted to Benin, according to TheCable.

“He’s asking the Beninese authorities to grant the separatist leader asylum, and not to return him to Nigeria,” a source in the Benin diplomatic circle was quoted to have said. “The former president intervened on the request of some south-west leaders.”

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Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, had been on the run since the Nigerian secret police invaded his home in Soka, Ibadan, Oyo State. The security agents had indiscriminately killed two of his aides in cold blood and arrested many others, even his cats.

After an initial denial, the Department of the State Security Service (DSS) claimed responsibility for the midnight raid and paraded Igboho’s captured aides, accusing them of possessing firearms and instigating violence, a claim denied by the secessionist.

Igboho would later be arrested by Beninese security forces while attempting to flee to Germany.