Buruji Kashamu
The senator representing Ogun East in the Senate, Buruji Kashamu, on Monday obtained a fresh order from a Federal High Court in Abuja restraining the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and the agency’s former Chairman, Ahmadu Giade, from arresting him.
Kashamu had applied for the order through an ex parte application following his apprehension that he could be abducted by the Federal Government through the NDLEA for the purpose of illegally extraditing him to the United States of America to face drug-related charges.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole granted the interim order restraining the senator’s arrest or detention after listening to Kashamu’s lawyer, Ajibola Oluyede, who moved the motion ex parte in the suit marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015, on Monday.
The judge ruled that the interim order would subsist till Wednesday.
Kashamu, who is a former Director of Mobilisation, Peoples Democratic Party, in his ex parte application, is seeking three prayers, including an order of interim injunction, restraining the three defendants (AGF, NDLEA and Giade) “from arresting, detaining or applying for a warrant for his arrest in relation to his alleged involvement in drug trade, pending the determination of the contempt proceedings he initiated against them.”
The motion was brought pursuant to Order 35 Rule 2(1) and 26 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules (2009) and Section (6)(6) of the constitution.
While urging the court to grant his client’s prayers, as contained in the motion, Oluyede argued that it was imperative that the alleged contemnors be restrained from arresting Kashamu in view of an alleged attempt by the AGF, NDLEA and Giade to arrest him for the purpose of moving him to the US over his alleged involvement in illegal importation of prohibited narcotics into the country.
Oluyede argued that there was a valid reason for the application because there was real threat to arrest his client.
It is Kashamu’s contention that despite earlier decisions by the Federal High Court prohibiting the Federal Government and its agents from extradicting him to the US in relation to the drug issue, and that British courts had exonerated him, they were still taking steps to arrest, detain and transport him to the US over the case.
