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.
