Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo says the former lawmaker from Ogun state, the late Buruji Kashamu used law and politics to escape from facing justice on alleged criminal offence.

Kashamu died from coronavirus complications at the age of 62 on Saturday, August 8, 2020, at the First Cardiology Consultant in Lagos.

In a condolence message titled ‘Letter of condolence,’ Obasanjo described Kashamu’s death as sad, saying he was a significant citizen of Ogun state. 

The letter reads, “I received the sad news of the demise of Senator Esho Jinadu (Buruji Kashamu), a significant citizen of Ogun State. Please accept my condolences and that of my family on this irreparable loss.

“The life and history of the departed have lessons for those of us on this side of the veil. Senator Esho Jinadu (Buruji Kashamu) in his lifetime used the manoeuvre of law and politics to escape from facing justice on the alleged criminal offence in Nigeria and outside Nigeria.

“But no legal, political, cultural, social or even medical manoeuver could stop the cold hand of death when the creator of all of us decides that the time is up.

“May Allah forgive his sins and accept his soul into Aljanah, and may God grant his family and friends fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

It would be recalled that in 2014, Obasanjo resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party because of Kashamu.

In a letter he wrote to the then Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Obasanjo said he found the exaltation of Kashamu in PDP in South-West geo-political zone unsavoury.

In the letter dated January 7, 2014, Obasanjo wrote: “Buruji Kashamu has been so extolled in PDP in South-West geo-political zone which I personally find unsavoury. Politics played by any national political party must have morality, decency, discipline, principles and leadership examples as cardinal practices of the party.

“While I continue to remain a card-carrying member of PDP, I cannot and I will not subscribe to a wanted habitual criminal being installed as my zonal leader in the party; a criminal for whom extradition has been requested by the US government. In the meantime, I will consider withdrawing my activity with PDP at local, state, zonal and national levels until the anomalous and shameful situation is corrected.”

Obasanjo thereafter tore his membership card and left the party.