DSS detained me for six months, taunted me to transform to cat like Igboho — Traditionalist

An Ekiti-based traditionalist, Dada Ifasooto, who spent six months in the custody of the Department of State Services in Abuja has narrated how the secret police pronounced him innocent and released him on December 24, 2021 after wrongfully accusing him of preparing charms for the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and embattled Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho.

According to him the 29 years old herbal medical practitioner and traditionalist based in Ekiti, he had never met Sunday Igboho before but he has heard a lot about him in news reports, adding that “a young man called Tajudeen (Irinloye) whom I have known for some time is a commercial motorcycle rider in Ibadan and he had come to me for treatment for an ailment. I called him thereafter to follow up on the treatment plan that I gave to him but unknown to me, he is an aide of Chief Igboho and the DSS had arrested him and some other aides during the widely-reported night raid of July 1, 2021.

“When I phoned him, his line rang out and he didn’t call back, which was strange to me. I never knew he was in the DSS custody. The next thing I saw was that on July 16, 2021, four fully-armed men in mufti stormed my sitting room in Ikere Ekiti around 6pm. They scattered everywhere, asking me where my android phone was. After I gave them my phone, they told me I called a commercial motorcycle rider in Ibadan. They said he (Tajudeen) had been detained and they had come to arrest me. They searched my apartment asking if I had a gun but I told them I do not own one. I asked them to show me their search and arrest warrants but they could not provide any,” he said.

Speaking on his experience, he stated that a DSS official interrogated him when he arrived in Abuja, adding that “he asked whether any herbalist followed those who came for my arrest and I told him I don’t know. The official then informed me that the same people who arrested my boss, Chief Sunday Igboho, who turned to cats, were the ones who also came for me. I told him Chief Sunday Igboho was not my boss and I had never met him before.

“He mockingly told me to disappear then that I had been handcuffed and I told him I don’t know what he was talking about. I told him I can’t vanish because I am not a criminal. He shut me up and locked me up. I was locked up for the first three months and nearly forgotten there. I was pained because I did not commit any offence and did not deserve the treatment.

“I developed ulcer and high blood pressure in DSS custody after three months. On October 10, 2021, I was taken to a hospital and I wasn’t taken back there. On November 10, 2021, I was taken out of the cell to write down a statement and was immediately returned to the cell,” he explained.

He stated further that he was locked up with some Hausa/Fulani detainees accused of being Boko Haram members and they were 13 in the room, adding that “No, I was not beaten but the conditions I was subjected to were dehumanising. I couldn’t sleep in detention, and I developed so many ailments.”

(Story adapted from The PUNCH)