The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered Senator Buruji Kashamu to submit himself to the police for investigation in an alleged attempt to carry out a politically motivated assassination on a House of Representatives member, Mr. Oladipupo Adebutu.
The court refused to stop the police from investigating the Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial district on the alleged crime.
Delivering judgment in a suit filed by the Senator, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba said that the police under the 1999 constitution and police act have statutory powers to invite any Nigeria for interrogation on any criminal allegation.
The judge said that the lawmaker did not place sufficient materials before the court upon which an order perpetual injunction can be issued against the police on his invitation.
Specifically, Justice Dimgba said that the fear expressed by the Senator that the police wants to use the petition as a ploy to extradite him to the United States to face drug charges was unfounded and has no foundation.
The court held that the police has the power to interrogate based on any suspicion and that any attempt to curtail police power in that regard potent danger.
It further held that the petition dated August 16, 2016, authored by the House of Representatives member that the Senator attempted to assassinate him in Port Harcourt has nothing to do with the alleged drug case in the United States of America.
According to the court, whatever might have been his experience in the past in relation to his extradition cannot be used to remove the statutory function of the police in the investigation of an assassination attempt.
The court said that it is clear that a period was brought based on a fracas between the applicant and the petitioner mister Adebutu.
”I do not see how the police can be faulted by acting within the constitution to invite the Senator.
I do not believe that the allegations of a ploy to extradite the applicant to the United States if America is justified, here the police is bound to set up an investigating panel and the Senator is bound to submit himself to the organs of the police including honoring the letter of investigation “
The court, however, said that the fears of the Senator that he could be arrested, detained and extradited to the USA are understandable, going by part of the affidavit of the petitioner that, since 2010 the Senator has been running from one court to the other to seek a declaration that he is not the one being sought for drug charge in the United States and that he promised during the election that he will return to the United States to clear his name but has since refused to do so making the PDP a joke in the eyes of every other political party in Ogun state.
Justice Dimgba than said that even though he has ordered the Senator to submit himself to the police for investigation based on previous judgment of the Federal High Court in Lagos, upon submitting himself for investigating the police cannot arrest, detain or extraditing to the United States and will be unlawful for any other agency to assist the police in repatriating him to the USA in view of the subsisting court judgement .
