Embattled Nigerian Senator, Ike Ekweremadu, his wife and a doctor have been sentenced on Friday by a United Kingdom Court after they had been convicted of organ trafficking in the country weeks earlier.
This is the first sentencing of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act in the UK.
Ahead of the sentencing, former president Olusegun Obasanjo had written the UK Court official asking for clemency on behalf of the Ekweremadus.
A member of House of Representatives from Enugu, home state of Ike Ekweremadu also sought the lswmakers’ intervention to lessen the punishment for former Deputy Senate President. Other prominent Nigerians and kinsmen of the Ekweremadus equally begged for leniency for him without success.
The Senator risked life imprisonment in the extreme or a jail term of between 5 and 10 years depending on whichever one the court elects to slam on him.
However, the UK court this afternoon (Nigerian time) rebuffed all the pleas from Nigeria and sentenced the former Deputy Senate President of Nigeria to nine years and eight months in prison for organ trafficking plot.
The court also sentenced his wife, Beatrice to four years, six months while the doctor who helped as the couple’s medical ‘middleman,’ Dr Obinna Obeta bagged 10 years. His medical license was equally suspended.
The Daily Crucible reports that Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found in March this year, guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.
However, the Ekweremadus’ daughter Sonia, 25, shed tears as she was cleared of the same charge after jurors deliberated for nearly 14 hours.
The former Deputy President of Nigerian Senate and others criminally conspired to bring a 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him and harvest his kidney, the jury found.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the court heard.
Back in February 2022, the young man was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant. For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo translator between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.
The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. He said they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.
The behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy,” Davies told the jury.
He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact.
Some Little Details You Didn’t Know About The Ekweremadu Case
By Emeka Ugwuonye
David Ukpo Nwamini is the 21-year old Lagos street hawker who was to give his kidney to Ekweremadu’s daughter IN London. When he was interviewed at the hospital in London, they asked him if he knew he was to donate his kidney to Sonia Ekweremadu. He first told them that he had no money to donate. They explained to him that it was his kidney that he was to donate. He asked them what was kidney. Initially, the doctors thought it was a question of language, since David’s English was not good enough. However, they eventually understood that David did not know which human organ was called kidney. In other words, he did not know what organ he was to give Sonia. That led the doctors to conclude that the procedure was not well-explained to David and that is the number one requirement by law. According to the law, you must explain to the organ donor the procedure and all the health risks associated with the procedure. It is only then that the donor is taken to have informedly consented. When the doctors found that David did not understand what he was about to get involved in, they declared him a mismatch.
The term “mismatch” is a technical generic language to indicate that the proposed organ harvesting has not met all the requirements. Many in Nigeria have misunderstood the term “mismatch” in this case to meant that David’s kidney was not suitable for Sonia. No! There was nothing wrong with David’s Kidney. To donate an organ, the facts must match both the law and the science governing the procedure. While the kidney matched the scientific requirement, the facts did not match the legal requirement. So, it was declared a mismatch. To help you understand it better, the term “mismatch” means there is a discrepancy.
The doctors who interviewed David did not and could not have determined that a crime was committed. The doctors did not have sufficient information to reach such conclusion then. They felt uncomfortable with the discrepancies in the information they had about the donor and his decisions and whether he had made up his mind. For instance, the doctors did not get involved in how David was brought to them or whether he was paid. It was not their duty to deal with that. It was actually when Ekweremadu and Dr. Obinna attempted to return David to Nigeria that the problem started. David expected that he would be given a job in London as he was told before he left Nigeria. They did not give him job and they did not send him to school. Instead of all he was promised, he was asked to prepare to return to Nigeria and David ran away from the house where he was kept. As hunger wired him, he reported himself to the police. To win the immediate protection of the police, he lied about his age by telling them he was 15. It was when he was interviewed by the police that the information came out which established that a crime was committed. For instance, it was at the police station that they asked him if he was paid money and he said yes he was paid N270,000. When the police checked the WhatsApp chats between Ekweremadu and Dr. Obeta they realized that Ekweremadu actually paid 4.5 million for Obeta to pay to David. But Obeta only paid David N270,000 and pocketed the rest.
In fact, Ekweremadu tried to keep himself away from certain details of the deal. That was why Ekweremadu never discussed money with David. In fact, he did not deal directly with David. That was what made it possible for Obeta to cheat him. Ekweremadu believed that the 4.5 million went to David. But since he was not dealing with David directly, he never knew that Obeta pocketed most of the money. However, the law viewed Ekweremadu’s decision not to deal directly with David as a typical behavior of a big man who knew that he is getting involved in a crime. He would usually try to create some distance between him and the crime, yet he will be funding the crime from afar.
Otherwise, how come you never wanted to meet the boy that is giving his kidney to your daughter and whom you called cousin to your daughter (which actually makes him your nephew)? Rather than see the non-direct dealing as evidence of his innocence, it was seen as deliberate or willful ignorance aimed at evading legal responsibility.
One of the key factors that worked against Ekweremadu was that he lied. On three official documents he signed, he stated that David was Sonia’s cousin. But in all the WhatsApp chats he had with the doctor and his own brother over the matter, he referred to David as “that guy”. Hence the question: “You knew he was not Sonia’s cousin. While you signed that he was her cousin, when you wanted to say the truth, you referred to him as “that guy”, meaning you didn’t know him or even remember his name”. Ekweremadu admitted in court that he lied and apologized.
NOTE: I decided to provide these details because I have read somewhere it was being said that David misled Ekweremadu and took advantage of him. No, David is a real victim. He did not manipulate them. He was manipulated by Dr. Obinna Obeta, who was working for the Ekweremadu.
