Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court in Lagos will on November 10 deliver ruling on the application brought by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) that he should disqualify himself from a new suit by Senator Buruji Kashamu, the senator representing, Ogun East in the senate.
The NDLEA had also in the application asked the judge to reverse the order stopping it from seizing the senator’s property.
Kashamu had in the suit alleged that he had got winds of the plan by the NDLEA and the AGF to seize or take over his properties which include a 24-flat housing estate at Egbe, Lagos and several hectares of Land at Lekki Peninsular, Lagos worth over N20 billion.
According to Kashamu’s lawyer, Ajibola Oluyede, allowing the respondents to seize Kashamu’s properties would be a breach of his fundamental right to own properties as enshrined under section 43 and 44 of the Nigerian Constitution.
But NDLEA, through its lawyer, J.N. Sunday, wanted the judge to disqualify himself from the case, saying that he had adjudicated over Kashamu’s previous case and given judgment.
He added that it might be impossible for him to reach a different conclusion in the new case which emanated from the earlier case.
Justice Buba had on June 23, 2015 reaffirmed the May 27 order by another judge, Okon Abang, also of the Federal High Court, restraining the NDLEA and others from extraditing Kashamu to the United States of America on an alleged drug case.
The judge had also granted an interim injunction which retrained the respondents from interfering with Kashamu’s right to own property either in Nigeria or anywhere in the world pending the determination of the main suit.
At the last hearing, the court sanctioned NDLEA for what he described as “deliberate attempt to delay the suit” brought by the senator.
The judge also awarded the sum of N20, 000 against the anti-narcotics agency.
The ruling was supposed to come up yesterday but the judge did not sit and the matter was adjourned till November 10, 2015.
