The senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Buruji Kashamu, is being invited by the police to help in their investigation in the allegation of threat to life and assassination plot levelled against him by a member of the House of Representatives (Ikenne, Sagamu and Remo North Federal Constituency), Oladipupo Adebutu, the Nigeria Police have said.
This was made known on Thursday by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, in his written address to a counter-affidavit filed in a fundamental rights enforcement suit by Kashamu, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/647/2016.
The IGP, who was listed as the 1st respondent, faulted the suit.
The explanation by the police came just as a Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday declined from issuing any restraining order against the IGP and the Department of State Services from arresting and extraditing Kashamu to the United States to face the trial for alleged links with drugs.
While describing the suit as speculative and an attempt by Kashamu to among others restrain the police from performing its statutory responsibilities of investigating criminal allegations against him, the IGP urged the court to dismiss the suit as it was capable of sending wrong signals.
The IGP in his written address to the counter-affidavit said, “Both the applicant and the 3rd respondent (Adebutu) have made allegations of crime against each other and it is the duty of the 1st respondent (IGP) to investigate and make findings.
This court cannot restrain the 1st respondent from investigating one and leaving the other on the speculation and imagination of the applicant that he will be arrested and transported to America, more so, when the 3rd respondent has not made such allegation against the applicant.
“We urge this court to dismiss the suit as being speculative and portends danger for the criminal justice in Nigeria if persons alleged of committing crime as serious as attempted assassination are shielded from investigation on mere conjecture as being sought in this case. This will breed anarchy and impunity in Nigeria where the government is doing everything to eliminate cases of politically-motivated assassination.
“This court cannot assume the criminal investigative power of the police to investigate the allegations made against each other in exhibits P1 and P2 (the petitions by Adebutu and Kashamu to the police). It is after the police have performed this role that the court will be called upon to adjudicate on the matter.”
Adebutu had, in his petition dated August 22, alleged among others that Kashamu, who belonged to an opposing faction of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State, led some 50 thugs to attack him and almost killed him a night before the botched national convention of the PDP in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.
Kashamu, in his counter-petition dated August 26, denied Adebutu’s allegation, accusing him of being encouraged to smear his image by some chieftains of the PDP in the South-West.
PUNCH
