TheCable

Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti, says he prevented operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) from arresting Johnson Suleman, founder of the Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide, in the early hours of Wednesday.

The pastor was in Ado-Ekiti for a two-day crusade.

While speaking to his congregation recently, said he instructed his security aides to kill herdsmen who come around the church premises.

“After about a week, he called me and said ‘They might bring them around church premises’. I said ‘It’s okay’. And I told my people, any Fulani herdsman you see around, kill him,” he said.

“I have told them in the church here, that any Fulani herdsman that just enters by mistake, should be killed. If they are busy killing Christians and nothing is happening, we will kill them and nothing will happen.”

But according to PUNCH, Suleman said if the DSS had arrested him, it would put the country “on fire.”

He said he put a phone call to Fayose when the operatives came to arrest him at midnight.

“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,” the pastor told journalists.

“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 on fire.”

Also speaking with journalists, Fayose condemned the attempted arrest, saying that the federal government must learn to respect the rights of Nigerians.

“I expected the security operatives to invite him 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,” the governor said.

“I personally attended his crusade and I think it is wrong for a man of God, who is harmless, that could be invited, to be ambushed. If they have any issue against him. Are Christians and Moslems 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.”