Election tribunal sacks Kashamu, six others

Suspected drug baron and Nigerian senator Buruji Kashamu has been stripped of his legislative mandate.

The American government wants Kashamu over drug related offences.

The elections petition tribunal investigating Kashamu’s “victory” during March parliamentary poll, Friday, nullified the embattled senator’s election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Kashamu winner of the Ogun East senatorial district poll.

Kashamu, whom Nigerian student leaders recently gave a leadership excellence award, is no longer a Nigerian senator.

The Ebiowei Tobi-led tribunal sitting in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun state, stripped Kashamu of the “mandate” and ordered a re-run election across 110 polling units in the senatorial district.

Nigerian student leaders were criticised to "honouring" Kashamu. — Nigerian student leaders were criticised to “honouring” Kashamu.

Kashamu has been in the storm of a lingering drug offence related legal battle with the American government.

Despite this, he contested in the 2015 general elections under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and won.

The tribunal’s verdict could be indicative of the fraudulence Kashamu’s “victory” was fraught with.

A member of House of Representatives from Ijebu East /Ijebu North /Ogun waterside, Adekoya Adesegun, and five members of the state assembly were also stripped of their mandate over non-compliance of electoral law.

The elections that brought them in will now be re-conducted.