What Kashamu Did During NDLEA Siege

A controversial senator-elect, Buruji Kashamu, was forced to hide in his apartment’s toilet in Lagos for six days as National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) operatives raided his home and put him under house arrest two weeks ago, his lawyer revealed.

Ajibola Oluyede, Kashamu’s lawyer, told a federal court in Lagos that senator-elect continued in hiding while 20 masked anti-narcotic agents took over his bedroom.

The lawyer said despite an earlier ruling of the court that the agency lift its obstruction on Kashamu’s residence, the NDELA only removed its operatives after he was bound to sign an undertaking.

He said: “The only reason they left was because I signed an undertaking. 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.”

Oluyede advised the court to annul any warrant of arrest that might have been gotten by the anti-narcotic agency from any source in an attempt to repatriate his client.

It should be noted that the judge, Ibrahim Bubba, ‎ordered the Attorney General of Nigeria, the NDLEA not to take any further action to repatriate Kashamu to the United States, until the proceedings before him are determined.

Justice Buba said: ‘’at the expense of being repetitive, the defendants who are alleged contemnor are once again ordered not to do anything that will undermine the suit before the court. It is the duty of all parties to obey the order of court’’.

‘’Therefore, counsel should note that the motion to set aside the orders of court and the main application has not been argued. So the court has to adjourn this matter in order for parties to be served appropriately so that justice can be done,” he stated.

A senator-elect wanted by the United States in a nearly ­20-year-old heroin deal that was allegedly the basis for the TV hit “Orange Is the New Black.”

A previous request to extradite Kashamu from Britain failed in 2003. Kashamu spent five years in a British jail before he was freed over uncertainty about his identity. He was carrying $230,000 when he was arrested there.