Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum, Ayodele Fayose, in the early hours of Wednesday prevented operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) from arresting Apostle Johnson Suleman of The Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide in Ado Ekiti.
Suleman had in a recent video preached against alleged Islamisation of Nigeria and called on Christians to resist the killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen, who he said were targeting Christians to decimate them.
The anti-MMM pastor, who was in Ado Ekiti for a two-day crusade attended by Fayose, was allegedly trailed after paying a courtesy visit to the governor at the Government House to his hotel room by the operatives of the DSS in Adebayo area of Ado-Ekiti.
He claimed the secret police agents almost forced their way into his room, but were resisted by security men of the hotel that insisted on knowing their mission.
The pastor then called Fayose who personally led a mission to prevent the arrest and took Suleman to safety.
The Pastor, who narrated his ordeal around 2am, said: “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.
“These Fulani headmen 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 near 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.”
Fayose, who expressed surprise that a man of God was being trailed for arrest, said his expectation was that if Suleman had any questions to answer, he should simply have been invited.
He said: “If they have any issue with him, instead of arresting him in the dead of the night after a powerful and spirit-filled crusade in my State, they should have invited him.
“I personally attended his crusade and I think it is wrong for a man of God who is armless that could be invited if they have any issue against him.
“Are Christians and Muslims under different dispensation of the rule of law?
“That’s why I went there to rescue him.
“Let them kill two of us together.
“But when they saw my vehicles and the crowd, they fled.
“But we have information that instructions came from DSS in Abuja that the Pastor should be arrested.
“We are not in a fascist state.
“Federal Government must learn to respect the rights of Nigerians and freedom of expression.”
Fayose noted that it was unbecoming of the Federal Government to be harassing clergymen in the country, noting that the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, was harassed and forced to resign shortly after he visited him in Ado Ekiti.
