Several operatives of Iru Ekun — a private security outfit linked to Yoruba Nation campaigner Sunday Igboho — were wounded in a fierce gun battle after suspected cross-border bandits ambushed them during a tracking operation inside the Old Oyo National Park in Oyo State.
Sunday Igboho’s security operatives went hunting criminals in the forest. The criminals were waiting for them.
Several members of Iru Ekun — a private security outfit associated with Yoruba Nation campaigner Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho — were wounded after suspected cross-border bandits ambushed them during an operation inside the Old Oyo National Park, Oyo State.
According to sources familiar with the operation, as reported by Tribune, the Iru Ekun team deployed surveillance drones to locate criminal hideouts and monitor armed group movements before advancing into the dense forest reserve. The mission was tracking suspected kidnappers and armed criminals believed to be entrenched within the park.
Then the shooting started.
Heavily armed men — believed to be members of cross-border criminal networks — opened fire on the advancing operatives, triggering a fierce gun battle deep inside the forest. Several Iru Ekun members sustained injuries, though the exact casualty figures remained unconfirmed at press time.
The ambush raises uncomfortable questions about the scale and sophistication of criminal networks operating within South-West Nigeria’s forests — groups apparently well-armed enough and well-organised enough to anticipate drone surveillance and counter-attack a trained security team.
It also spotlights the increasingly prominent role of non-state security actors like Iru Ekun in filling the vacuum left by overstretched conventional security agencies across the region.
Oyo State Police Command did not respond to requests for comment.
The forest that harbours Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis just showed exactly how dangerous it has become — even for those hunting the hunters.
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