Police and Omoyele Sowore, an opposition presidential candidate, offered conflicting accounts Friday, Oct. 30, of an incident in Ado-Ekiti, after he alleged armed men attacked his team.
The African Action Congress (AAC) candidate for Nigeria's 2027 presidential election said armed men targeted him and members of his team. The Ekiti State Police Command said officers responded to a distress call after an altercation was reported at a restaurant.
An initial post from Sowore's X account said he had been kidnapped and his whereabouts were unknown. In later posts, he accused government-backed men of carrying out the attack and alleged that Department of State Services (DSS) operatives gave them his team's location and tracked the group from its arrival in Ekiti the previous day. The allegations are unverified.
The command said officers rescued Sowore and took him to the Police Hospital in Ado-Ekiti, where he was receiving care for an injury it described as minor. Police said preliminary information pointed to an altercation with people at the restaurant and denied that Sowore had been kidnapped.
Sowore rejected that account, writing: “There was no altercation! We were attacked!”
Police Commissioner Falade Adegoroye Michael ordered a discreet investigation to establish what happened and identify those involved, the command said. It did not report any findings.
