Lagos---Nigerian narcotics agents said on Saturday a senator-elect was placed under house arrest who is wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges, with an extradition hearing set for Monday.
Buruji Kashamu -- elected in April to represent southwest Ogun state in Nigeria's Senate -- was indicted in an Illinois court in 1998 over conspiracy to distribute heroin.
e was arrested in Britain that December, but ultimately convinced British authorities that the drug trafficking evidence in fact related to his brother and that US investigators had confused the two men.
A British court approved his release in 2003 and Kashamu returned to Nigeria, where he became a major funder of the powerful Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
After years of US requests to arrest Kashamu, Nigerian agents appeared to finally take action during a 5:00 am (0400 GMT) raid on Saturday.
"A special team of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has confined Ogun State Senator-elect, Buruji Kashamu to his Lagos residence pending his appearance in court on Monday May 25, 2015 to perfect his extradition to the United States," the NDLEA statement said.
"The operation is in line with the legal process of extradition," it added.
Kashamu's spokesman Austin Oniyokor described the NDLEA operation as "an illegal abduction plot" being perpetrated by the senator-elect's political enemies.
"The United States being the bastion of democracy... should not lend itself to this kind of illegality," Oniyokor said.
The allegations against Kashamu stem from the arrest of a trafficker caught trying to smuggle 14 pounds (6.4 kilograms) of heroin through Chicago's O'Hare Airport in 1994, according to documents filed with the US District Court in Illinois.
During interrogation, that trafficker identified Kashamu -- then a resident of Nigeria's tiny neighbour Benin -- as the ringleader of the heroin operation.
Kashamu has repeatedly denied any involvement in drug smuggling, consistently throwing blame on his brother, whom he reportedly resembles.
Outgoing Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan faced criticism over his ties to Kashamu.
The PDP, which has controlled the federal government since the end of military rule in 1999, will lose power on Friday when president-elect Muhammadu Buhari is sworn in.
Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) party will also take charge of Nigeria's parliament.
It was not immediately clear if political changes in Nigeria had anything to do with NDLEA's decision to move against Kashamu.
AFP
