Kashamu: NDLEA challenges court’s jurisdiction on extradition

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Thursday challenged the jurisdiction of a Federal High Court, Lagos, to entertain a suit filed by Senator-elect, Prince Buruji Kashamu against plans by the agency to extradite him to the United States.

At the resumed hearing of the committal charge before Justice Ibrahim Buba, counsel to NDLEA, James Sunday drew the court’s attention to a motion asking the court to set aside its order of May 26, restraining the agency from arresting Kashamu.

He informed the court that the agency has not been served with originating summons and submitted that the court ought not to have made the order.

Following the siege on Kashamu’s Lekki, Lagos, home by operatives of the NDLEA as a result of an alleged extradition request sent by the U.S government for Kashamu to answer drug trafficking charges, the Senator-elect had approached the court to stop the agency from arresting him.

Arguing before Justice Buba on Thursday, counsel to Kashamu, Ajibola Oluyede told the court his client spent six days in his toilet hiding from men of the NDLEA.

He told the court that men from the NDLEA only vacated Kashamu’s residence after he (Oluyede) was compelled to sign an undertaking, adding that without signing the undertaken they would not have left the building.

‘’The only reason they left was because I signed an undertaken.  My client was in a toilet for six days with 20 masked armed men in his bedroom. So, I signed the undertaking before they left, they should not claim to have obeyed the order of the court,” he said.

He prayed the court for fresh orders in light of moves by the NDLEA to commence extradition proceedings against Kashamu.

Oluyede prayed the court to declare as illegal, any fresh moves by NDLEA to extradite Kashamu to the U.S, given that there are subsisting judgments.

He also urged the court to nullify any warrant of arrest that might have been obtained through any source in an attempt to extradite his client.

Oluyede also prayed for an order directing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to provide police security to protect the applicant from any attempt on his life.