Society Gists

Senator Buruji Kashamu has warned that before anybody could succeed to extradite him to the US to face trial for drug-related offences, “about three, four or five people will die.”

Kashamu, who described as illegal the move by the US to extradite him to the US to face alleged drug charges, said he believed that the Buhari government had integrity and had respect for the rule of law and would, therefore, not allow him to be taken away.

Arguing that the case brought against him by the US Government had been laid to rest by two British courts 14 years ago, and three Nigerian courts in 2015, all of which he said were not appealed, Kashamu said all that the US could do was to “abduct” him, claiming that no extradition proceedings could be lawfully  commenced against him.

He vowed that any attempt to ‘abduct’ him would be met with violence, saying he planned to engage the services of members of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress for protection.

The businessman added, “There is no extradition that can be brought against me again. The only thing they can do is to watch and catch me on the road; take me to the airport or Cotonou or throw me inside a vessel and take me through the Atlantic Ocean. But I am not going to let that happen.

“I don’t go to the beach, and now, I will go and hire OPC, may be like 40. I will load them (in my vehicle), because the day we meet, one has to kill one. That is for sure! One has to kill one because I am not ready to go anywhere. Before that happens, maybe about three, four or five people will die.

“But I do not believe that this government can entertain this kind of rubbish. I do believe that this government has integrity and they (officials) are credible; they believe in the rule of law, because if they want to do it, they could have done it. “Obasanjo has been pushing them, using one Sandra, a former ambassador of the United States; he’s the one pushing everybody, meeting all these judges, but what have I done?”

In a statement titled, ‘US court ruling: I have no case to answer’, dated January 28, 2017, Kashamu maintained that he was not the offender wanted in the US, but his younger brother, Adewale Kashamu, who is now late.

He stated, “My brother was living in Chicago, I sent him to school. He’s very well educated. He was the one having girlfriends there; he was the one who caused a lot of problems. Even when I was in London, they still traced almost $2m into his bank account while I was in prison; they still continued doing the transaction. If you go through the last British judgment, it is there. The Interpol people were the ones who went to the bank and got all the information, and carried all the documents, they came to London and gave evidence in court.

“The Beninoise Interpol produced evidence showing that the Benin telephone number, through which the US offenders communicated with their West African collaborators, belonged to my brother, Adewale Kashamu, and not me, Buruji Kashamu.

“When they were looking for him, the NDLEA people went to his house here; they searched his house. They went to his car company, they sealed his car company and they took over 30 vehicles from there. He ran away.

“He was using the office of Remi Adiukwu Oluwalogbon on Allen Avenue. For three good years, he did not pay Remi Adiukwu. The NDLEA people sealed the car company and they confirmed this in one of their letters.”