The court set aside all orders made by Justice Okon Abang and Justice Saliu Seidu of the Federal High Court between 2014 and 2017 restraining the government from proceeding with the extradition.
Delivering judgement in an appeal filed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Justice Joseph Ikyeghi held that the orders granted Kashamu by Justice Abang were invalid, nonsensical and unacceptable to laws because they were based on hearsays and speculations by Senator Kashamu.
The court also held that Kashamu’s averments that a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was instigating the extradition was not established under any law.
The Appeal Court said that an affidavit deposed to by the senator was worthless and not in compliance with Evidence Act because the senator himself claimed that he was told by several persons who were not called to testify in court.
Justice Ikyeghi held that Justice Abang, in his two judgments on the issue, erred in law by placing undue reliance on affidavit that offended evidence act to give judgment against the Federal Government.
Consequently, the order of injunction stopping the extraction process was voided and set aside.
Another order which terminated the extradition process in the second judgment of Justice Abang was also set aside, having been issued in error by the Federal High Court.
Justice Ikyeghi agreed with counsel for the Federal Government, Chief Emeka Ngige (SAN), that a statutory body like the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) can only be prohibited from performing its statutory functions based on facts and not hearsays and speculations as in the instant case.
The AGF claimed in the appeal that Kashamu suppressed facts before the High Court to secure the restraining order against the Federal Government.
The AGF had also averred that Justice Abang erred in law by issuing orders in favour of the senator without evaluating the documentary evidence placed before him during the hearing and urged the appeal court to void the two judgments and set them aside.
He, therefore, urged the appellate court to set aside the decisions of the High Court so as to allow the federal government to execute the request of the USA government to extradite the senator to America.
But Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), who led Kashamu’s legal team comprising Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN), and Hakeem Afolabi (SAN), had urged the court to uphold the judgment of Abang on the grounds that it was based on fact and not hearsays.
It will be recalled that the Federal Government had in 2014 moved to extradite Kashamu to the United States to answer criminal charges filed against him in an American Court on drug offence.
The American Government had approached the Nigerian Government to extradite the senator in line with the extradition treaty between the two countries.
But the Senator, through his counsel, rushed to the Federal High Court with complaints that due process of law was not followed in the extradition process.
He claimed in his suit that the person indicted for the alleged drug offence was his younger brother who had a striking resemblance with him and who had since died.
Ultimately, the Appeal Court said the preliminary objection filed by Senator Kashamu against the substantive appeals were dismissed as lacking in merit.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the oral statements of threats of abduction and forcibly transporting Senator Kashamu to the US was insufficient having not been backed by concrete evidence.
In his reaction to the judgement, Senator Kashamu said in a statement that there was no extradition case against him in any court.
According to the statement personally signed by him, “Let me state from the outset that contrary to the wrong impression being created by a section of the media, there isn’t any extradition matter against me in any court in Nigeria or abroad. The illegal move surreptitiously introduced by the powers-that-be after the 2015 abduction plot was exposed has been dismissed. That was in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015. The suit was dismissed on the 1st of July, 2015, for being an abuse of court process. Anything to the contrary is sheer mischief and over sensationalism.”
The statement added that the judgement that was delivered had to do with the appeal instituted by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice against the judgment of the Federal High Court in the fundamental human rights enforcement matter comprised in Suit No.FHC/L/CS/508/2015 “which I had instituted in 2015 upon becoming aware of the surreptitious moves by certain persons to abduct me illegally and transport me to the U.S.A. without recourse to the rule of law.”
Kashamu stated that “In its judgment in Suit No: FHC/L/CS/508/2015,the Federal High Court restrained the federal government, its agents and agencies from abducting and forcibly transporting me to the United States of America over the same allegations that two British courts had adjudicated upon and found out to be a case of mistaken identity.
“So, clearly what was appealed and decided upon by the Court of Appeal today (Friday) has nothing to do with extradition. Rather, it was about the failed 2015 abduction.
“Let me reiterate that in the face of the law, I do not have any extradition case to answer. Shun of all political manipulations and wizardry in Nigeria where political opponents pull down people to climb up the political ladder, I do not have any extradition case to answer.
“I wish to say for the umpteenth time that there is no way any extradition proceedings can be brought against me in the face of the law. What I have been fighting is the attempt to abduct or kidnap me in the guise of an extradition. It is a matter of public record that the purported extradition case that was filed against me in May 2015 was dismissed by the Federal High Court, Abuja, for being an illegality. It could not stand the test of the law. The case could not have seen the light of the day in Nigeria or any civilized country. That was the point the trial judge, the Honourable Justice Gabriel Kolawole, made in the judgment when he described the incident as “a show of shame”. He found it incomprehensible that any government official or agency could want to take any step or collaborate with some foreign agents under any guise to perpetrate an illegality after several courts had given judgments against such an action.
“So, in the face of the law, that case cannot be brought again! Any other talk or insinuations about a non-existent extradition only exists in the imagination of the mischief-makers. Therefore, there cannot be any other extradition but abduction and an illegality.”
Kashamu said his lawyers had already filed a notice of appeal and a motion for injunction pending the determination of the appeal to the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
and then