Drama has just unfolded in Ado Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State where Apostle Johnson Suleman, the general overseer of the Omega Fire Ministries was being held hostage in his hotel by operatives of the Nigerian secret police, the State Security Services, SSS, also known as DSS.
Apostle Suleman, a vocal critic of the Muhammadu Buhari’s regime’s handling of the Fulani herdsmen militia killings in the country, was holding a two-day crusade in Ado Ekiti, when news began to spread that the DSS planned to pick him up at the crusade ground.
The firebrand pastor has been preaching against Islamising Nigeria and asked members of his church in Auchi, Edo State to resist the killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen, who have been killing Christians in Central Nigeria and parts of southern regions of the Christian.
When the cleric returned to his room at Midas Hotel on Iworoko Road after ministering at the event which was attended by the governor, men of the DSS arrived in three Hilux vans and laid siege on the hotel with the intent of leaving with the prominent Christian cleric.
“I came to Ado Ekiti for a crusade. But I had a premonition that I was being trailed after I preached that Christians should retaliate any attack or killings by the Fulani herdsmen,” Suleman said.
“These Fulani herdsmen had turned many Christians to orphans and widowers but the time has come to protect ourselves.
“I received several calls from hidden numbers trying to locate where I am and I had warned my security not to allow any Fulani man to come nearer me.
“So when the men of DSS came in the middle of the night I knew their mission and I had to call the Governor because if they arrest me, they will put this country in fire,” he told journalists at about 2am.
He explained that the operatives of the DSS were trying to break into the room where he was staying. But when a crowd of worshippers began to assemble at the hotel, they ceased the operation.
The governor, “stormed Midas Hotel to rescue Apostle Johnson Suleman who was to be arrested by the DSS for speaking against Fulani herdsmen killing in Nigeria”, Lere Olayinka, a media aide to Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, wrote on Facebook.
“Armed men of the DSS came in three Hilux vans and were laying siege on the hotel before the governor stormed the hotel,” he continued.
“Governor Fayose drove himself to the hotel and moved the man of God to the Government House.”
Fayose arrived at the hotel at about 1am on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 and left with the cleric.
“It was the crowd that scared them,” the apostle explained to a journalist at the Government House.
“But the truth I want to pass out, if anything… If I spend a day with the security operatives, I have churches in 42 countries and I have alerted them,” Apostle Suleman threatened.
“Every Nigerian embassy in those countries will be in trouble.
“If I spend one day with security operatives, the damage that will happen to Nigeria will take one year to repair.
“If I spend one day. In this country, I have over half a million people and there are reactions already.
“If I spend one day with security operatives, the damage that will happen to Nigeria will take one year to repair.