A Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed an application by the federal government for the extradition of Buruji Kashamu, a senator representing Ogun-East in the National Assembly.
Kashamu is currently wanted to the United States of America for drug trafficking related offences.
The immediate past attorney-general and minister of justice, Mohammed Adoke, had filed the application on May 28, 2015 after the US government requested for the senator’s extradition.
Presiding judge Gabriel Kolawole in his ruling held that he lacked requisite jurisdiction to entertain the suit while the judgment of the division of the court in Lagos nullifying the proceedings on June 8, 2015 and the same judgment affirmed by another judge of the same Lagos division had not been set aside by an appellate court.
A judge, Okon Abang, of the Lagos division of the Federal High Court had on June 8, 2015, nullified the extradition proceedings which he said were initiated in contravention of an earlier order of the court.
Abang’s orders nullifying legal proceedings were equally affirmed by another judge, Ibrahim Buba, in another ruling on June 23, 2015.
Kolawole had expressed reservations on the Lagos judgments, which he described as “wild and audacious.”
He, however, held that it was the exclusive duty of the Court of Appeal to determine whether the rulings were rightly or wrongly given.
Kashamu’s counsel, Ajibola Oluyede, had on June 25, 2015, when the case came up for the first time, urged the court to dismiss the extradition application in the light of the judgments delivered in Lagos