The Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday
nullified a ruling by the Federal High Court (FHC) which prohibited
the arrest of Buruji Kashamu by Nigerian law enforcement agencies.
The court said the senator is not above the law and should be
arrested if there is a need.
The appeal court panel led by Yargata Nimpar overturned the
ruling which was delivered by Okon Abang of the Federal High Court
in 2015.
Mr Kashamu, a serving senator representing Ogun East Senatorial
District, approached Mr Abang for the enforcement of his
fundamental rights, saying he had uncovered a purported plot by
Nigerian security agencies to abduct and extradite him to the
United States.
Mr Kashamu is being sought in the U.S. on drugs charges,
although he had continued to deny the allegations, saying it was,
at worse, a case of mistaken identity.
In May 2015, the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)
laid a siege to Mr Kashamu’s residence in Lagos in a bid to arrest
and send him to the U.S. to face drugs charges. For the ensuing six
days, Mr Kashamu reportedly locked himself inside a toilet and
refused to submit himself to federal authorities.
His lawyers successfully prevailed on Mr Abang to grant an order
forbidding the NDLEA from carrying out the arrest. The agency
subsequently withdrew its personnel, ending the six-day siege.
The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation filed
several submissions before the FHC, seeking to arrest Mr Kashamu
for extradition. But the attempts were frustrated by several
injunctions granted by Mr Abang, prompting the AGF to seek redress
at the Court of Appeal.
Mr Kashamu had argued before the FHC that there were plots to
arrest him and take him to the U.S. over a matter for which he had
been cleared by judicial authorities in the United Kingdom between
the late 1990s and early 2000s.
But U.S. authorities insisted that Mr Kashamu must come to the
country to face drugs charges for which several of his alleged
co-conspirators had been tried, convicted and jailed.
In 2016, a U.S. Court of Appeal in Chicago, Illinois, ruled that
Mr Kashamu must answer his drugs allegations in U.S. courts.
Despite all the controversies surrounding Mr Kashamu’s case, the
U.S. authorities have not publicly disclosed whether they sought Mr
Kashamu’s extradition or not. But some legal analysts said there
was no need to make such request public, adding that the NDLEA’s
move to arrest him and send him to the U.S. was enough grounds to
conclude that the U.S. was interested in the matter.
Yemi Oke, an associate professor of law at the University of
Lagos who filed a watching brief in the case, provided the key
highlights of today’s proceedings at the Court of Appeal to our
reporter. The following decisions were delivered in Appeal No:
CA/1030/2015- A.G FED V PRINCE BURUJI KASHAMU & ORS, and Appeal
No.: CA/1030A/2015- A.G. FED. V KASHAMU & ORS.
• The preliminary objection filed by Mr Kashamu against the
substantive appeals are dismissed as lacking in merits. The Court
of Appeal held that the appeal filed by the Attorney-General
against the ruling of the lower court is not statute barred.
On the substantive appeals:
• Court of appeal set aside the orders of perpetual injunction
granted in favour of Mr Kashamu against the Nigerian government,
the Attorney-General, the State Security Service, the
Inspector-General of Police and the NDLEA.
• Court of Appeal ruled that the oral statements of threat of
abduction and attempted transfer of Mr Kashamu to the U.S. is
insufficient, having not been backed by concrete evidence.
• Court of Appeal also held that the Attorney-General is the
chief law officer of the country and the chief law officer of the
cause of justice and, as such, has the has constitutional and legal
powers to enforce laws.
• Court of Appeal said the FHC should not have granted the
injunction sought by Mr Kashamu on mere speculation of abduction
and kidnapping.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal ruled that the appeal has
merit and set aside the order of perpetual injunction secured by Mr
Kashamu.
Mr Kashamu swiftly reacted to the ruling on Friday afternoon,
saying in a statement to PREMIUM TIMES that the judgement had
nothing to do with his extradition. He insisted that he had no
pending extradition case anywhere in Nigeria.
Bellow is the senator’s full response as sent to our
reporter by his media aide, Austin Oniyokor:
PRESS STATEMENT
KASHAMU: I’VE NO EXTRADITION CASE IN COURT
My attention has been drawn to today’s judgment of the Court of
Appeal sitting in Lagos in an appeal filed by the Attorney-General
of the Federation (AGF) against the judgment delivered by the
Federal High Court, Lagos, in my favour in a fundamental human
rights enforcement suit.
Let me state from the outset that contrary to the wrong
impression being created by a section of the media, there isn’t any
extradition matter against me in any court in Nigeria or abroad.
The illegal move surreptitiously introduced by the
powers-that-beafter the 2015 abduction plot was exposed has been
dismissed. That was in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015. The suit was
dismissed on the 1st of July, 2015, for being an abuse of court
process. Anything to the contrary is sheer mischief and over
sensationalism by some reporters.
As journalists and judicial reporters who are expected to seek
and report the truth at all times, they should know that there is
NO extradition case against me anywhere. The Office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice appealed
against the judgment of the Federal High Court in the fundamental
human rights enforcement matter comprised in Suit
No.FHC/L/CS/508/2015 which I had instituted in 2015 upon becoming
aware of the surreptitious moves by certain persons to abduct me
illegally and transport me to the U.S.A. without recourse to the
rule of law.
In its judgment in Suit No: FHC/L/CS/508/2015,the Federal High
Courtrestrained the Federal Government, its agents and agencies
from abducting and forcibly transporting me to the United States of
America over the same allegations that two British courts had
adjudicated upon and found that to bea case of mistaken
identity.
So, clearly what was appealed and decided upon by the Court of
Appeal today has nothing to do with extradition. Rather, it was
about the failed 2015 abduction.
Let me reiterate that in the face of the law, I do not have any
extradition case to answer. Shun of all political manipulations and
wizardry in Nigeria where political opponents pull down people to
climb up the political ladder, I do not have any extradition case
to answer.
I wish to say for the umpteenth time thatthere is no way any
extradition proceedingscan be brought against me in the face of the
law. What I have been fighting is the attempt to abduct or kidnap
me in the guise of an extradition. It is a matter of public record
that the purported extradition case that was filed against me in
May 2015 was dismissed by the Federal High Court, Abuja,for being
an illegality. It could not stand the test of the law. The case
could not have seen the light of the day in Nigeria or any
civilized country. That was the point the trial judge, the
Honourable Justice Gabriel Kolawole made in the judgment when he
described the incident as “a show of shame”. He found it
incomprehensible that any government official or agency could want
to take any step or collaborate with some foreign agents under any
guise to perpetrate an illegality after several courts had given
judgments against such an action.
So, in the face of the law, that case cannot be brought again!
Any other talk or insinuations about a non-existent extradition
only exists in the imagination of the mischief-makers. Therefore,
there cannot be any other extradition but abduction and an
illegality.
This is even more so when the judgment of the British Courts
that found the allegation against me to be a case of mistaken
identity was not appealed. If a court of competent jurisdiction has
pronounced that I AM NOT the person who committed the offence and
same verdict has been upheld by our own courts, there is no way
this finding and pronouncements of the court can be jettisoned for
illegality.
It is this illegality that the Senate frowned at in a resolution
passed on the 11th of April, 2017.
The Senate through its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and
Public Petitions resolved, “That the concerned agencies and
authorities be advised to stop threatening or carrying out any
activities to extradite Senator BurujiKashamu to the United States
of America for prosecution, and that the courts be allowed to
handle the various aspects of the case before them without any
interference.”
Despite the fact that the British courts had exonerated me, I
have an abiding faith and believe in our judiciary. We have many
people in the judiciary from rich background and reputable
families. They do not have to be judicial officers. But, today they
are judicial officers because of the call of the Almighty Allah
upon them. They sit in courts five days in a week, taking cases and
writing judgments upon judgments in long hands. They deny
themselves of the freedom that the rest of us enjoy. They cannot
have friends and live their lives freely like the rest of us.
Invariably, by accepting to do the job most of us cannot do,
they are sacrificing a lot. They belong in the class of some of the
best and finest men and women that a society can ever ask for;
powerful people yet self-effacing with the fear of God. They know
that even when they are judges, they are still conscious of the
fact that they are also accountable to the Almighty Allah who is
the ultimate judge.
Despite the imperfections in the system, we should respect them
because they represent the unseen hands and unheard voices
contributing their quota to the development of our dear country. It
is because of these unseen hand and unheard voices that Nigeria has
not become a banana republic where injustice can be perpetrated
with reckless abandon.
Mischief makers and blackmailers should stop all the
noise-making. I do not have anything to do with crime and
criminalities. Those peddling this lie are merely playing the
devil’s advocate. But I take refuge in the Almighty Allah Subwana
ta Allah. He is my shepherd and shield. Even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
In the meantime, my lawyers have filed a Notice of Appeal and a
Motion for injunction pending the determination of the appeal to
the Supreme Court of Nigeria. And I trust that the apex court will
do justice. I also wish to use this medium to appeal to all my
associates, lovers, supporters and leaders to remain calm. The
truth shall prevail over falsehood as light triumphs over
darkness.
Signed
Senator Buruji Kashamu
Ogun East Senatorial District
04.05.18
The Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday
nullified a ruling by the Federal High Court (FHC) which prohibited
the arrest of Buruji Kashamu by Nigerian law enforcement agencies.
The court said the senator is not above the law and should be
arrested if there is a need.
The appeal court panel led by Yargata Nimpar overturned the
ruling which was delivered by Okon Abang of the Federal High Court
in 2015.
Mr Kashamu, a serving senator representing Ogun East Senatorial
District, approached Mr Abang for the enforcement of his
fundamental rights, saying he had uncovered a purported plot by
Nigerian security agencies to abduct and extradite him to the
United States.
Mr Kashamu is being sought in the U.S. on drugs charges,
although he had continued to deny the allegations, saying it was,
at worse, a case of mistaken identity.
In May 2015, the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)
laid a siege to Mr Kashamu’s residence in Lagos in a bid to arrest
and send him to the U.S. to face drugs charges. For the ensuing six
days, Mr Kashamu reportedly locked himself inside a toilet and
refused to submit himself to federal authorities.
His lawyers successfully prevailed on Mr Abang to grant an order
forbidding the NDLEA from carrying out the arrest. The agency
subsequently withdrew its personnel, ending the six-day siege.
The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation filed
several submissions before the FHC, seeking to arrest Mr Kashamu
for extradition. But the attempts were frustrated by several
injunctions granted by Mr Abang, prompting the AGF to seek redress
at the Court of Appeal.
Mr Kashamu had argued before the FHC that there were plots to
arrest him and take him to the U.S. over a matter for which he had
been cleared by judicial authorities in the United Kingdom between
the late 1990s and early 2000s.
But U.S. authorities insisted that Mr Kashamu must come to the
country to face drugs charges for which several of his alleged
co-conspirators had been tried, convicted and jailed.
In 2016, a U.S. Court of Appeal in Chicago, Illinois, ruled that
Mr Kashamu must answer his drugs allegations in U.S. courts.
Despite all the controversies surrounding Mr Kashamu’s case, the
U.S. authorities have not publicly disclosed whether they sought Mr
Kashamu’s extradition or not. But some legal analysts said there
was no need to make such request public, adding that the NDLEA’s
move to arrest him and send him to the U.S. was enough grounds to
conclude that the U.S. was interested in the matter.
Yemi Oke, an associate professor of law at the University of
Lagos who filed a watching brief in the case, provided the key
highlights of today’s proceedings at the Court of Appeal to our
reporter. The following decisions were delivered in Appeal No:
CA/1030/2015- A.G FED V PRINCE BURUJI KASHAMU & ORS, and Appeal
No.: CA/1030A/2015- A.G. FED. V KASHAMU & ORS.
• The preliminary objection filed by Mr Kashamu against the
substantive appeals are dismissed as lacking in merits. The Court
of Appeal held that the appeal filed by the Attorney-General
against the ruling of the lower court is not statute barred.
On the substantive appeals:
• Court of appeal set aside the orders of perpetual injunction
granted in favour of Mr Kashamu against the Nigerian government,
the Attorney-General, the State Security Service, the
Inspector-General of Police and the NDLEA.
• Court of Appeal ruled that the oral statements of threat of
abduction and attempted transfer of Mr Kashamu to the U.S. is
insufficient, having not been backed by concrete evidence.
• Court of Appeal also held that the Attorney-General is the
chief law officer of the country and the chief law officer of the
cause of justice and, as such, has the has constitutional and legal
powers to enforce laws.
• Court of Appeal said the FHC should not have granted the
injunction sought by Mr Kashamu on mere speculation of abduction
and kidnapping.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal ruled that the appeal has
merit and set aside the order of perpetual injunction secured by Mr
Kashamu.
Mr Kashamu swiftly reacted to the ruling on Friday afternoon,
saying in a statement to PREMIUM TIMES that the judgement had
nothing to do with his extradition. He insisted that he had no
pending extradition case anywhere in Nigeria.
Bellow is the senator’s full response as sent to our
reporter by his media aide, Austin Oniyokor:
PRESS STATEMENT
KASHAMU: I’VE NO EXTRADITION CASE IN COURT
My attention has been drawn to today’s judgment of the Court of
Appeal sitting in Lagos in an appeal filed by the Attorney-General
of the Federation (AGF) against the judgment delivered by the
Federal High Court, Lagos, in my favour in a fundamental human
rights enforcement suit.
Let me state from the outset that contrary to the wrong
impression being created by a section of the media, there isn’t any
extradition matter against me in any court in Nigeria or abroad.
The illegal move surreptitiously introduced by the
powers-that-beafter the 2015 abduction plot was exposed has been
dismissed. That was in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015. The suit was
dismissed on the 1st of July, 2015, for being an abuse of court
process. Anything to the contrary is sheer mischief and over
sensationalism by some reporters.
As journalists and judicial reporters who are expected to seek
and report the truth at all times, they should know that there is
NO extradition case against me anywhere. The Office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice appealed
against the judgment of the Federal High Court in the fundamental
human rights enforcement matter comprised in Suit
No.FHC/L/CS/508/2015 which I had instituted in 2015 upon becoming
aware of the surreptitious moves by certain persons to abduct me
illegally and transport me to the U.S.A. without recourse to the
rule of law.
In its judgment in Suit No: FHC/L/CS/508/2015,the Federal High
Courtrestrained the Federal Government, its agents and agencies
from abducting and forcibly transporting me to the United States of
America over the same allegations that two British courts had
adjudicated upon and found that to bea case of mistaken
identity.
So, clearly what was appealed and decided upon by the Court of
Appeal today has nothing to do with extradition. Rather, it was
about the failed 2015 abduction.
Let me reiterate that in the face of the law, I do not have any
extradition case to answer. Shun of all political manipulations and
wizardry in Nigeria where political opponents pull down people to
climb up the political ladder, I do not have any extradition case
to answer.
I wish to say for the umpteenth time thatthere is no way any
extradition proceedingscan be brought against me in the face of the
law. What I have been fighting is the attempt to abduct or kidnap
me in the guise of an extradition. It is a matter of public record
that the purported extradition case that was filed against me in
May 2015 was dismissed by the Federal High Court, Abuja,for being
an illegality. It could not stand the test of the law. The case
could not have seen the light of the day in Nigeria or any
civilized country. That was the point the trial judge, the
Honourable Justice Gabriel Kolawole made in the judgment when he
described the incident as “a show of shame”. He found it
incomprehensible that any government official or agency could want
to take any step or collaborate with some foreign agents under any
guise to perpetrate an illegality after several courts had given
judgments against such an action.
So, in the face of the law, that case cannot be brought again!
Any other talk or insinuations about a non-existent extradition
only exists in the imagination of the mischief-makers. Therefore,
there cannot be any other extradition but abduction and an
illegality.
This is even more so when the judgment of the British Courts
that found the allegation against me to be a case of mistaken
identity was not appealed. If a court of competent jurisdiction has
pronounced that I AM NOT the person who committed the offence and
same verdict has been upheld by our own courts, there is no way
this finding and pronouncements of the court can be jettisoned for
illegality.
It is this illegality that the Senate frowned at in a resolution
passed on the 11th of April, 2017.
The Senate through its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and
Public Petitions resolved, “That the concerned agencies and
authorities be advised to stop threatening or carrying out any
activities to extradite Senator BurujiKashamu to the United States
of America for prosecution, and that the courts be allowed to
handle the various aspects of the case before them without any
interference.”
Despite the fact that the British courts had exonerated me, I
have an abiding faith and believe in our judiciary. We have many
people in the judiciary from rich background and reputable
families. They do not have to be judicial officers. But, today they
are judicial officers because of the call of the Almighty Allah
upon them. They sit in courts five days in a week, taking cases and
writing judgments upon judgments in long hands. They deny
themselves of the freedom that the rest of us enjoy. They cannot
have friends and live their lives freely like the rest of us.
Invariably, by accepting to do the job most of us cannot do,
they are sacrificing a lot. They belong in the class of some of the
best and finest men and women that a society can ever ask for;
powerful people yet self-effacing with the fear of God. They know
that even when they are judges, they are still conscious of the
fact that they are also accountable to the Almighty Allah who is
the ultimate judge.
Despite the imperfections in the system, we should respect them
because they represent the unseen hands and unheard voices
contributing their quota to the development of our dear country. It
is because of these unseen hand and unheard voices that Nigeria has
not become a banana republic where injustice can be perpetrated
with reckless abandon.
Mischief makers and blackmailers should stop all the
noise-making. I do not have anything to do with crime and
criminalities. Those peddling this lie are merely playing the
devil’s advocate. But I take refuge in the Almighty Allah Subwana
ta Allah. He is my shepherd and shield. Even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
In the meantime, my lawyers have filed a Notice of Appeal and a
Motion for injunction pending the determination of the appeal to
the Supreme Court of Nigeria. And I trust that the apex court will
do justice. I also wish to use this medium to appeal to all my
associates, lovers, supporters and leaders to remain calm. The
truth shall prevail over falsehood as light triumphs over
darkness.
Signed
Senator Buruji Kashamu
Ogun East Senatorial District
04.05.18
Read more https://www.nairalaw.com/just-in-senator-buruji-kashamu-can-be-arrested-appeal-court-rules/