A lawyer to the fugitive senator-elect, Buruji Kashamu, Ajibola Oluyede, has said that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has no warrant of arrest nor an extradition request from the United States of America as it claimed.
Oluyede said this while speaking to journalists at the federal high court in Lagos after he appeared before Justice Ibrahim Buba with a new application.
The NDLEA had placed Kashamu under house arrest on Saturday, saying the move was to ensure Kashamu appears in court Monday to face extradition proceedings.
The anti-narcotics agency said it had received an extradition request from the United States government, which wants Kashamu to face trial for alleged drug related offences.
But Kashamu’s lawyer said the NDLEA failed to produce a warrant of arrest it claimed to have secured.
Oluyede, who accused Attorney General Mohammed Adoke and head of the NDLEA of illegality, challenged them to produce the US extradition request for his client.
He said his client and himself were ready on Monday and had waited in vain till 12p.m. for the NDLEA to produce the arrest warrant and bring them to court, following which he had to come to court himself with a fresh application.
Kashamu, in his fresh application, is seeking an order “directing the respondents to immediately release the applicant unconditionally, within two hours of making this order, from any arrest, detention or other restraint whatsoever that the respondents might have instigated or effected upon him”.
There was no indication that the NDLEA filed any application before the court as the matter didn’t appear before any justice at the Federal High court.
NDLEA’s Head of Public Affairs, Ofoyeju Mitchell, however in a statement on Monday afternoon, said the agency could not bring Kashamu to court because he failed to turn himself over to the operatives.
“Senator-elect Buruji Kashamu has failed to appear in court from his house where he is being closely monitored by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
“The Agency is working hard to ensure that he submits himself to the due process of the law. His house remained cordoned by anti-narcotic officers pending his appearance in court,” Mitchell said.
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