Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has described the invasion carried out on the Ibadan residence of Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, last Thursday by operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, as a “nocturnal coup”.

Falana said on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Monday.

Recall that the DSS last Thursday invaded Igboho’s residence, gunning down two of his allies. Subsequently, the secret police, through its spokesman, Peter Afunanya, while addressing newsmen in Abuja, declared Igboho wanted over alleged activities threatening the common existence of Nigeria.

Reacting to the development, Falana insisted that there is no law in Nigeria that allows DSS to arrest somebody in the dead of the night.

He said, “You can’t have a situation where nocturnal arrests are made in a state as if you are planning a coup. Take Ibadan for instance, the invasion of the home of Igboho happened in the night and for all-day, everybody was wondering who did and that seven people were killed. People were arrested and abducted at 2am, the governor of the state wasn’t aware. So, everybody was trying to find out, calling security agencies, only for the State Security Service to issue a very provocative statement after almost 12 hours to say, ‘We did it, we killed two people, we raided a house’. Somebody attempted to evade arrest and you killed two people? The governor of the state wasn’t aware?

“In these days of kidnappings, anybody can come to your house in the night and arrest you. And these are guys who don’t wear uniforms.”

“There is no provision, unless a crime is being committed in the night; you cannot go there and arrest. In this case, you are required by law to bring a search warrant. In this case, there was no search warrant, nobody took an inventory.

“Now, Sunday Adeyemo has said I didn’t have any gun in my house. Yet, the SSS paraded guns and other ammunition. All the controversies would have been unnecessary if the SSS had behaved like a modern, civilised agency.

“These are very dangerous legacies of military dictatorship in our country.”