Benin lawyer says it’s better to kill Igboho in Benin than return him to Nigeria for slaughter

Ibrahim Salami, a Cotonou-based lawyer of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho says it is better for Igboho to be kept and killed in Benin than hand him over to the Nigerian government to be slaughtered. 

The lawyer said everything would be done to ensure the secessionist agitator is not extradited to Nigeria.

Salami, who is also a law lecturer in the francophone country said this during a Facebook Live Interview with BBC News Yoruba on Saturday, July 24, 2021.

He said, “It is better for him to die here in Benin than extradited to Nigeria.

“With all that happened in his house and how the army is threatening him, allowing for his extradition will amount to sending him home to death.

“Rather than do that, it would be better to keep him in Benin and kill him than to let him go to Nigeria to be slaughtered like an animal.

“That has been our struggle and agitation here in Benin.”

The professor of law maintained that, by law, it would be difficult to extradite Igboho to Nigeria because there is no extradition treaty between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin.

“For someone to be extradited from one country to another, there must be a law between both countries, we call it accord for extradition. That accord does not exist between both countries.

“To extradite him will be difficult, but in politics, we can't say. But by law, there is no extradition accord between Nigeria and Benin,” he said.

Salami added that the Yoruba Nation agitator would return to court on Monday, July 26, 2021, and expressed hope that a verdict would be gotten on the same day.

Meanwhile, governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has disclosed that some people are working behind the scenes over the arrest and trial of Igboho in Benin..

The governor made this known on Saturday in response to the impression that south-west governors have abandoned the agitator.

The governor said the efforts of those “working behind the scenes” on behalf of Igboho do not have to be a public conversation.