On the morning of May 23rd 2015, Nigerians woke up to the hot news that about fifty stern-looking and heavily armed officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have surrounded the Lekki, Lagos premises of controversial politician and the Senator-elect for Ogun East, Prince Buruji Kashamu.
The NDLEA operatives arrived at the PDP chieftain’s home at about 4am, with the sole aim of extraditing him to the United States of America later in the day, to answer drug-related charges proffered against him.
The NDLEA had, through its Head of Public Affairs, Mr. Ofoyeju Mitchell, disclosed that the agency’s men invaded Kashamu’s residence in Lekki, Lagos State in response to the extradition request formally made to the Nigerian government by its American counterpart. The NDLEA went further to place airport correspondents on the alert for a news worthy event at the airport slated for that day. 
Buruji Kashamu’s road to infamy with top hierarchy of the People’s Democratic Party began on April 16 2015 when he authored a controversial “Open Letter” to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the APC, congratulating him for opposition party’s victory at the polls. In the said letter, which generated anger and a feeling of political betrayal among PDP hierarchy, Kashamu eulogized Tinubu as “the architect of modern Nigeria, who, he said, made history by leading an opposition party for 16 years and then grabbing power at the centre.”
He noted that “without Tinubu, the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, would not have won the March 28 election.”
The letter, coming at a time the PDP was still grousing its loss of political power at the centre, was seen as an act of betrayal and anti-party activities by the party’s bigwigs hence Kashamu who is also the Chairman, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee of the PDP in the South-West, was marked as an unreliable and undisciplined party leader who can not stand the test of difficult times.
All the while, Kashamu has been at daggers drawn with ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, who criticized the PDP and angrily resigned as its chairman of its Board of Trustees, when the party picked Kashamu as it leader in Ogun State and named him as its Chairman, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee of the PDP in the South-West, claiming the same man he once hobnobbed with and used as an instrument to fight the then governor Gbenga Daniel of his home state, Ogun, was a hardened drug baron who is one of America’s most wanted drug cartelist.
Obasanjo was said to have forwarded highly incriminating documents about Kashamu’s drug case in America to President Jonathan who rather than act on it looked the other way thereby unofficially shielding him arrest and extradition to the United States of America.
Prior to the 2015 general elections, Kashamu Buruji was the arrow head of PDP’s onslaught and Prez Jonathan’s re-election campaign in the South-West. His financial armoury contributed in no small measure to the PDP’s victory in Ekiti and was able to convince Prez. Jonathan that men of his character like Omisore, Fayose and Mimiko will deliver the South-West for the president.
The PDP’s victory in the Ekiti governorship election was enough to convince a politically naïve President Jonathan to do away with ex-President Obasanjo, his men in the PDP’s National Working Committee and other notable PDP leaders to embrace the brigandage led by Buruji Kashamu, Iyiola Omisore and Ayodele Fayose as the new leaders of the party from South-West.
Miffed by Kashamu’s letter to Tinubu, the Presidency was said to have relaxed its protective cover for Kashamu. He was put on 24 hour surveillance so as to prevent his escape to Cotonou in Benin Republic where he is a lord onto himself and where he was reputed to have single handedly installed the president of that country.
The crack team of his surveillance comprising of men of the Directorate of Security Service, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency and US Drug Enforcement Agency allegedly made two attempts to arrest Buruji Kashamu in his home town Ijebu Igbo but for his crowd of supporters and fear of high casualty should an arrest be attempted.
Kashamu obvious of the NDLEA’s security watch on him was always moving and staying with the crowd. Sources told National Infinity that on the day operatives laid siege on his house Buruji perfected a plan to abscond to Benin Republic using the smuggling routes in Badagry axis and that it was supposed to be an early morning sneak out he never knew the operatives were aware of his plans until he was alerted that his sprawling Lekki home is surrounded by heavily armed security men who disarmed his security guard, broke into his house to forcefully take him away. Buruji was said to have ran into one of the rooms in his fortress threatening suicide should they forcefully extradite him to America.
On the morning of May 23rd which co-incidentally was in the last week of Prez. Jonathan in office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, its American counterpart and detectives from Department of State Securities stormed and cordoned off the Lekki home of Buruji Kashamu.
Sources told National Infinity that the embattled senator-elect put a call through to Chief Olabode George, a former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, whose wife Roli Adeniyi George is the Director General of the NDLEA. The PDP chieftain was said to have ignored Kashamu. The relationship between the duo was said to have hit a low level days after Kashamu’s controversial letter to Tinubu who is Bode George’s arch political enemy. That was why he hurriedly issued a press release that it was Bode George that was after him. He got a cold shoulder from every other party big wigs and contacts at the Presidency including the Attorney General and Minister of Justice that he reached out to. To make matters worse, Mohammed Adoke, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice issued a statement endorsing Kashamu’s house arrest and impending deportation to face drug charges in America.
It was then realized the he has been dumped by the party’s hierarchy.
Why Buruji Kasham Ran Into Trouble With PDP
