MOUNTING PRESSURE FOR EXTRADITION UNSETTLES WANTED DRUG LORD AND SENATOR-ELECT, BURUJI KASHAMU

The fresh move by the US government requesting controversial businessman cum Senator-Elect Buruji Kashamu be extradite to face drug trafficking charges is said to have unsettle Kashamu's camp and as it is his loyalists waiting on the wings to benefit from his Senatorial sojourn may have their hopes dashed if all the effort put up by the US government to get him into the next available flight succeeds.

In a report today indication are that the government of the United States of America has begun fresh moves to extradite Senator-elect, Buruji Kashamu to face drug trafficking charges, which he has been evading for several years now. The development was revealed by his lawyer, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, in a petition to the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC.

In the said petition, Oluyede accused former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, of being behind the plot to extradite Kashamu. Kashamu’s enquiry revealed that indeed there had been moves by US officials within the region to secure the assistance of the head of the INTERPOL division in Nigeria, Mr. Solomon Arase, a Deputy Inspector General of Police, for the arrest and delivery to the US officials of Kashamu for transportation to the US without following the due process required by the Nigeria Extradition Act.

The matter is far from over as the United States government insists that the man the U.S government is looking for is no other person than Buruji Kashamu, the US considers Kashamu as a drug kingpin and a fugitive from the United States law. The U.S. further states that it has never withdrawn its warrant of arrest against Kashamu, maintaining further that the charges against Kashamu remain pending and will request for his extradition from Nigeria in due course.

Saharareporters investigation has revealed that there is indeed, a pending criminal action against Mr. Buruji before the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois involving fifteen people. The Case 1:94-cr-00172 is before Hon. Judge Charles R. Norgle. While Kashamu’s other coconspirators had been jailed, Kashamu’s case is being held under the fugitive Calendar. In February, 2009, Kashamu hired a team of lawyers to appear for him in the case for the purpose of filing a Motion requesting the Court to quash the arrest warrant which his lawyers led by Pravin B. Rao did.

Recall trouble started for Kashamu when in March 1994, defendant Kary Hayes, a passenger arriving at O’Hare International Airport  (“O’Hare”) on a flight from Zurich, Switzerland, was arrested after he tried to smuggle into the United States a suitcase containing approximately 14.16 pounds of heroin. Hayes was one of a long line of couriers in a heroin smuggling operation allegedly led by Kashamu. The government charged Hayes and other couriers after this initial arrest. Many of these couriers cooperated and provided information about their contacts with Kashamu.

This latest scenario may jeopardize the dream of Buruji Kashamu's Senate ambition because if he was extradited there would definitely be a by election to fill up the vacuum created by him