Nigerian drug agents on Saturday surrounded the house of a senator-elect wanted by the US in a nearly 20-year-old heroin deal that was the alleged basis for the TV hit Orange is the New Black.
Buruji Kashamu is under house arrest, according to Nigerian National Drug Law Enforcement Agency chairman Ahmadu Giade.
However, Kashamu’s spokesman, Austin Oniyokor, said: “He has not been arrested, but there is a siege to his house and an attempt to forcibly take him.”
Photo: AP
Oniyokor said the agents did not have an arrest warrant.
Giade said Kashamu, 56, would appear in a federal high court today to start extradition proceedings to the US.
He said agents raided Kashamu’s home in Lagos at about 5am on Saturday. Armed agents were seen surrounding the property on Saturday night.
Kashamu has already been suing a Nigerian court to prevent attempts to extradite him.
He had become a powerful politician and financier of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s party.
Jonathan lost the March elections, but Kashamu was elected a senator in balloting opponents said was rigged.
A Chicago grand jury in 1998 indicted Kashamu for conspiracy to import and distribute heroin in the US. Kashamu has said it is a case of mistaken identity and that prosecutors really want the dead brother he closely resembles.
He said Saturday’s development was a political conspiracy, according to his spokesman.
“This latest onslaught is a confirmation of the alleged plot to illegally abduct him, in spite of the pending suit against this illegality,” Oniyokor said.
It was not clear when the US filed an extradition request, but the Nigerian drug agency’s spokesman, Ofoyeju Mitchell, said a US extradition request was the reason for Saturday’s action.
The move comes days before Jonathan is to step down. Nigerian president-elect Muhammadu Buhari takes office on Friday.
The US had failed to ask Nigeria to extradite Kashamu before now.
In September last year, Chicago Judge Richard Posner refused a motion to dismiss Kashamu’s case and quoted the US Department of Justice as saying that “the prospects for extradition have recently improved.”
He also said that “given Kashamu’s prominence ... the probability of extradition may actually be low.”
A previous request to extradite him from Britain failed in 2003. Kashamu spent five years in a British jail before he was freed over uncertainty about his identity. He was carrying US$230,000 when he was arrested there.
A dozen people long ago pleaded guilty in the case, including American Piper Kerman, whose memoir was adapted for the Netflix hit Orange is the New Black.
Kerman’s book never identified Kashamu by name, only citing a west African drug kingpin.
Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has chastised Jonathan for his perceived protection of Kashamu and warned that “drug barons ... will buy candidates, parties and eventually buy power or be in power themselves.”
Kashamu has said that Obasanjo did not call him a drug baron when they were allies and while he spent about US$20 million ensuring their party’s success at 2011 elections.
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