An ex-Chief Justice of The Gambia, Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, has reacted to the extradition issue of a former head of Nigeria’s Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari and a Yoruba Nation Activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho.
Fagbenle said their extradition is subject to a proper judicial process, adding that it was the court’s pronouncement that could hand over the duo for extradition.
The former Chief judge stated this in a chat with journalists at the Achievers University, Owo, Ondo State, on Tuesday, after he delivered a public lecture titled, Independence of the judiciary in Nigeria: lessons from The Gambia and other jurisdictions. The lecture was part of the activities to mark the Law Week of the College of Law of the institution.
According to the jurist, extradition has a judicial process between two countries that have an extradition treaty.
He said Kyari and Igboho would not be extradited as is expected by some people without the completion of judicial procedure in the countries where they currently are.
Fagbenle said, ” We are the product of the common law and the common law justice delivery system. I know that among the countries, there are extradition treaties, which means judicial process is involved. If anybody in another country does anything for which another country seeks that he should come to be tried, the first thing to be done is to set the extradition process in motion.
“Abba Kyari is a Nigerian, he is presently living in Nigeria. So the extradition trial has to be done inside Nigeria. It is only when the Nigerian court approves that he should be extradited to the other country that he could go to the other country under the force of the judicial pronouncement of the Nigerian court.
“That is how it is done. The same thing happens to Sunday Igboho in Benin Republic. There is no amount of indictment that exists, until you pass through that process and the court has verified that you are a subject of extradition, nobody can extradict you. That is the protection you have.”
