The controversy over the leakage of the
information of an alleged plot to abduct and extradite the Ogun-East
senator-elect, Buruji Kashamu, to the United States of America in order
to face trial over alleged drug-trafficking offence, deepened on
Thursday as his lawyer, Ajibola Oluyede, maintained that the plot was
leaked to him by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Godwin Obla.
Obla is believed to be close the Attorney
General of the Federation and Minster of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke
(SAN), from whom he (Obla) allegedly got the information.
Obl, who denied having or leaking the
information, had dragged Oluyede before the Legal Practitioner
Disciplinary Committee, accusing him of fabricating the story to make
his client’s case look good.
He had said he could never have had and
shared such a piece of information with Oluyede, whom he said was no
more than a professional acquaintance to him.
The controversy started with a petition
dated April 15, 2015, which was authored and sent to the National Human
Rights Commission by Oluyede on behalf of Kashamu.
Oluyede had stated in the petition that Obla leaked the information to him while they were both on a flight from Abuja to Lagos.
Following Obla’s denial of leaking the
information, Oluyede again reacted by insisting that the information was
unsolicited when Obla offered it to him as a “whistle blower.”
Oluyede said in a statement, “I have just
seen Mr. Obla’s reaction to the letter written by my firm to the NHRC. I
assume from the tone of the rejoinder that Mr. Obla is under fire for
leaking this information to me and I am therefore not surprised.
“It is true that Mr. Obla and I are only
acquaintances and this was the reason I thought of him as a
conscientious and honorable whistle blower when he gave me this
unsolicited information.
“I had, in the matter he referred to in
his rejoinder, begun to admire his candour and independent thinking.
Even at that time he was very open about his candid views about the
facts of that case.
“I naturally informed my client about the
information as soon as Mr. Obla offered it and when the matter
developed, I had no hesitation in confirming it to debunk the growing
impression that he was merely imagining the matter.
“I sympathise with Chief Obla if my duty
to my client has brought him discomfort. I, however, see his resort to
abusive language and threats as totally unjustifiable and untenable.”
Oluyede stated in the petition to the
NHRC that Obla told him that as a friend to Adoke, he (Obla) witnessed
an occasion when former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a political
adversary of Kashamu, was mounting pressure on the AGF to ensure the
extradition of the senator-elect to the US.
But Obla said in his petition to the LPDC
in which he accused Oluyede of fabricating the story, that he did not
know anything beyond what was reported in the media about the
personality of Kashamu.
He said he had “never had any connection
nor shown any particular or special interest beyond the media effects of
consistent reportage on the person of Kashamu and his associates,
including the said Prince Ajibola Oluyede, his lawyer, with whom I only
had a brief encounter in court in the year 2013 in the course of my
professional duties in suits totally unconnected with Kashamu.”
Meanwhile a group, Civil Society Network
against Corruption, has also petitioned the LPDC, accusing Kashamu’s
team of lawyers of abuse of judicial process.
The petition dated May 11, 2015 arose
from what the group perceived as multiplicity of suits filed by
Kashamu’s lawyers to scuttle any purported move to extradite the
senator-elect to the US to face alleged drug charges.
The group stated in the petition dated
May 11, 2015 that, “In a suit, Mr. Kashamu sued the Attorney General of
the Federation at the Lagos Judicial Division of the Federal High Court.
“In the said suit, the plaintiff
challenged the moves to extradite him to the United States to stand
trial for drug trafficking. In spite of the defence of the AGF that
there was neither a request for extradition of the plaintiff by the
United States nor was the Nigerian government planning to surrender him
for extradition, the trial judge, Justice Okechukwu Okeke (now retired)
ruled that Mr. Kashamu should not be extradited.”
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