Court turns down application seeking to stop Kashamu’s arrest

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, declined to grant an order sought by the senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Senator Buruji Kashamu, to restrain the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Police (NPF) from arresting him.

Kashamu had, through his lawyer, Godswill Mrakpor, filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit and accompanied it with a motion ex-parte for injunction.

He had sought an order of the court to restrain the DSS and the NPF (the respondents) from taking steps to arrest him pending the determination of the substantive suit.

When the matter came up on Tuesday, Justice Okon Abang, declined to grant the exparte injunction and rather, ordered that the respondents be served with the motion for them to be in court on the next adjourned date to show cause why Kashamu’s prayers, as contained in the ex-parte application, should not be granted.

Kashamu, in a supporting affidavit, stated that the security agencies are acting based on a “politically motivated petition” authored by one Oladipupo Adebutu from Ogun State.

The senator alleged that there were moves to arrest him and transport him to the United States to face drug-related charges and further argued that the move to arrest and extradict him was contrary to orders earlier made by the Lagos division of the Federal High Court in two suits marked: FHC/ L/CS/49/2010 and FHC/L/CS/508/2015, which he had filed on the same issue.

A statement issued on Tuesday by Austin Oniyokor, the senator’s media adviser, however, said: “we wish to state that the case has nothing to do with extradition. The only extradition case that was in Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015, has been dismissed by the Federal High Court, Abuja, on July, 2015.”

He added that the extant suit had to do with a petition written against the senator by a member of the House of Representatives from Ogun State, Honourable Oladipupo Adebutu, “in which he made all manner of unfounded allegations and requested the security agencies to take certain steps that could inhibit the fundamental human rights of the senator.”

Oniyokor also said that in a bid to forestall an infringement on his rights to free movement and association, that Kashamu filed the fundamental human rights enforcement suit in court.