Ajibola Oluyede, a lawyer to the late Buruji Kashamu, has alleged that the political adversaries of his clients colluded with the United States of America in an attempt to extradite him to the North American country over a narcotics case.
Oluyede made the claim in a tribute in honour of the deceased entitled: “PBK the Warrior Prince”, on Sunday.
Kashamu, who represented Ogun East Senatorial District in the eighth assembly, died on 8 August from complications of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) at a Lagos hospital.
According to the lawyer, the US government knew that Kashamu was not involved in any drug scandal as he was not caught with drugs at the Chicago airport in 1994.
He also alleged that the US government hid evidence indicating that Kashamu was wrongly arrested during an extradition case in a British court.
This, Oluyede said, made Tim Workman, an English magistrate, in 2003 “finally came to the conclusion that the US authorities had falsified evidence”.
Oluyede said: “The US authorities apparently knew that Buruji Kashamu was not the man referred to as ‘Alaji’ by a group of students caught with drugs in 1994 at the airport in Chicago. Yet they decided to hide evidence from the British courts, which indicated that they had arrested the wrong man in London in 1998 (this was the finding of a panel of three British Justices who heard PBK’s habeas corpus application in 2000).
“For this reason, the panel of Justices set aside the committal order made for his extradition to the US from the UK.”
In a subtle reference to a statement by former president Olusegun Obasanjo on Kashamu’s life, Oluyede said his client’s “mostly successful legal actions were not legal maneuvers, but the intelligent response of a warrior to the attempts by his stronger Nigerian adversaries (who were used to living above the rule of law) to subdue him”.
“His political adversaries seized various distortions of his odyssey in the UK to give the false impression that his wealth was derived from an alleged 1994 offence from which the British courts had exonerated him.
“Failing to dent his growing popularity by this attack on his image, PBK’s adversaries embarked upon a scheme to secure the help of the US authorities to abduct and actually take him out of circulation.
“PBK fought various schemes to abduct and ship him off to the US till his last breath,” Oluyede wrote.
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