A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday declined to grant an order sought by Senator Buruji Kashamu to restrain the Department of State Service (DSS) and the Police from arresting him.
Kashamu, a senator representing Ogun East, 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 to restrain the respondents from taking steps to arrest him pending the determination of the substantive suit.
Yesterday, Justice Okon Abang declined to grant an ex-parte injunction.
Instead, the judge ordered that the respondents be served with the motion and for them to attend court on the next adjourned date to show cause why Kashamu’s prayers, as contained in the ex-parte application, should not be granted.
The senator, in a supporting affidavit, stated that the security agencies are acting based on a “politically motivated petition” authored by one Oladikupo Adebutu from Ogun State.
Kashamu, in a statement, said: “This extant suit relates to a frivolous petition written against Senator Kashamu by a member of the House of Representatives from Ogun State, Hon. 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.
“It was in a bid to forestall an infringement on his rights to freedom of movement and association that Senator Kashamu filed the Fundamental Human Rights Enforcement suit in court.
“When the matter came up today (Tuesday), the court granted Senator Kashamu’s application to be heard during vacation and to serve the processes on one of the defendants outside jurisdiction.”
While the court refrained from making any preservatory order as canvassed by, the senator’s counsel, Mr. Godswill Mrakpor, it urged parties to observe the principle of lis pendens which enjoins parties not to take any steps in respect of a pending action in court. That could not in any way be rightly interpreted to mean refusal of an application to stop anyone’s extradition because there is no such application in the first place.”
