A group, the Coalition for Rule of Law, has commended the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos for its declaration that the representative of Ogun East Senatorial District, Senator Buruji Kashamu, can now be arrested.
The groups’s National Coordinator, Tade Adebiyi, said this in a statement in Abuja on Saturday.
Adebiyi said the Appeal Court verdict, delivered on Friday, has once again affirmed its position that the senator, wanted by the US authorities to face trial for drug trafficking, is “a fugitive running away from the law. It therefore, urged the Federal Government to, without further delay, bundle the Senator in question to the United States.”
On February 8, 2017, the Coalition for Rule of Law, had written a letter addressed to the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, stating that the continue failure of the Federal Government to extradite the “wanted” Senator was an embarrassment to Nigeria.
A copy of the letter, also signed by Adebiyi, was also sent to the United States Ambassador to Nigeria.
The group, in the letter, recalled that the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal recently upheld the judgment of a lower court that Kashamu should be brought to trial in the US.
It noted that Kashamu’s case remained “a big minus for the Muhammadu Buhari administration, adding that Nigerians abroad were being subjected to ridicule because of the case.”
The group recalled that the senator had been “patronising President Muhammadu Buhari through newspaper interviews and advertorials.”
The statement added: “If the embattled Senator is not working for the Presidency, as he has been boasting, we urged the Federal Government to extradite him without further delay, failure to which we shall have no other option than to approach the court to seek the order of mandamus to compel the Attorney General to perform his official obligation.”