Good name, the Yoruba are wont to say, is better than gold and riches.

But some individuals seem not to see any rhyme or reason in this proverbial saying; hence, they don’t care a hoot sacrificing their family name on the altar of inordinate ambition.

Before our very eyes, Buruji Kashamu, a politician and businessman, by his actions and inactions, has shown evidence of a man who is less bordered about his name being dragged in the mud or carrying a perpetual blot.

The world, for the first time, had been drawn to his moral bankruptcy in 1998 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo had given a damning verdict on him.

Obasanjo’s vitriolic attack had come on the heels of  Kashamu’s arrest in the United Kingdom on drugs-related charges after trying to enter the country with the sum of $230,000.

Though he was acquitted and released in 2003, the British authorities had subsequently refused a request seeking his extradition on drug charges by the United States of America, USA.

The British authorities, in declining the extradition request, had expressed concerns about his identity.

Obasanjo, who would not want the global community to tar the generality of the Nigerian citizenry with the brush of criminality, had then issued the famous statement that Kashamu’s “ ongoing freedom illustrated that drug barons will buy candidates, parties and eventually buy power or be in power themselves.”

Since then, Kashamu has been playing hide and seek with the law enforcement agencies, claiming he is not the wanted man!

Even then, big-framed Kashamu stirred another controversy when people claimed he is the character, Alhaji, the drug kingpin in the fictional work entitled Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman.

Again, Kashamu was in the news for the bad reason when he contested for governor on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in 2019.

Kashamu, who has been evading extradition by the government to face criminal charges over drugs-related issues in the US, had put up all imaginable drama to secure the party’s ticket and also battled Ladi Adebutu, son of Sir Kessington Adebutu, to clinch the ticket.

As fate would have it, Kashamu, who once represented the Ogun East Senatorial district, was trounced by Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the election, which he considered a do-or-die affair.

Surprisingly, eight months after his “celebrated” defeat, Kashamu is back in the news still unable to accept the rude shock to his life.

To him, Ladi Adebutu was a spoke in the wheel of his political ambition. To him, the Adebutu exposed him to underserved ridicule.

Therefore, Kashamu, last Tuesday, he bared his fang on the Adebutus. But sadly, he inadvertently exposed his satanic tendencies to the chagrin of even his lean fans in and outside the state.

In a report by a section of the media, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC was said to have gone after Sir Kessington Adebutu, Chairman of Premier Lotto, over alleged tax fraud.

The EFCC action, according to the report, followed a petition submitted by Kashamu, who is behind Western Lotto.

Interestingly, Kashamu, who has failed to exercise restrain in his desperation, has further exposed the anti-graft agency as lacking in diligence and a willing tool in the hands of even unscrupulous elements in the society.

It is now clear that Kashamu’s personage thrives only on controversies.

But those who know better say he will return worsted this time round “because there is no iota of truth in the allegation.”

It is a fact the octogenarian businessman has been widely hailed as pioneering inclusive gaming  in Nigeria.

Today, many have gone into the business, creating thousands of jobs for teeming Nigerian youths.

In fact, Adebutu’s betting exploits, it is said, had made former President Olusegun Obasanjo to establish a federal agency to regulate lotteries across Nigeria in 2005.