Extradition: Kashamu seeks S’Court’s intervention

Kashamu had in 2015 secured a judgment of the Federal High Court in Lagos restraining the AGF and others from “abducting” him and forcefully “transporting” him to the United States of America to stand trial over alleged drug offences before Judge Norgle. The senator had then, through his lawyer, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, told Justice Okon Abang that he had uncovered a plot by his political enemies to manipulate law enforcement agencies in the country to abduct and transport him to the US. Justice Abang, in a May 27, 2015 judgment, restrained all the defendants in the suit, including the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency from abducting and transporting Kashamu to the US, holding that he had been exonerated of the alleged crime. But following an appeal by the AGF, the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, in a lead judgment by Justice Nimpar Yagarta on Friday, overturned Justice Abang’s judgment. The appellate court ruled that Kashamu’s claim of a plot to abduct him was speculative and inadmissible in the face of the provisions of the Evidence Act. Displeased with the judgment, the senator, through his lawyers has, therefore, headed for the Supreme Court, seeking the apex court’s intervention. In the notice of appeal, his counsel insisted that Kashamu’s affidavit before the Court of Appeal was full of facts showing the conclusion of a plot by the AGF and others to abduct and transport him to the US to face trial over alleged offences in respect of which he had been exonerated. The counsel contended that the appellate court was wrong for holding that Kashamu ought to have waited for the alleged plot to be hatched before approaching the court to seek redress. “There was uncontroverted evidence before the lower court that in 2000, during the Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, an illegal abduction was carried out against a Nigerian citizen with the assistance of government officials and with the consent of the said President Olusegun Obasanjo. “The lower court was wrong in failing to see that all the information that was available to the appellant was enough to justify an apprehension of likelihood of breach of his fundamental right to liberty through his abduction by the respondents and transportation to the USA,” Kashamu’s lawyers contended.]]>