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Former Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison in the United kingdom for being, what the judge described as, the “driving force” in a plot to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter from a young Nigerian boy he had trafficked to London in March, 2022.
Ekweremadu, together with his wife, Beatrice, aged 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, aged 51, were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury in March. It was the first organ trafficking conviction under the Modern Slavery Act of the United Kingdom.
The court found them guilty of conspiring to bring a 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London’s Royal Free hospital, renal department, as a potential kidney donor for Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia, who had been battling kidney problems.
On Friday, May 5, 2023, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, while sentencing the three Nigerians, said they all played a part in a “despicable trade”, adding: “The harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery. It treats human beings and their bodies as commodities to be bought and sold.”
The judge noted that Ike Ekweremadu was a member of the Nigerian Senate when it outlawed organ trafficking.
Referring to the allegation of bribing a medical secretary at the Royal Free, Justice Johnson said: “You were involved in the corruption of a member of hospital staff.” He said Ekweremadu must serve two-thirds of his sentence in prison and the remainder released under licence.
Nigeria’s Senate and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had urged the judge to show clemency to Ekweremadu. But the court was adamant.
Beatrice Ekweremadu, the senator’s wife, was sentenced to four years and six months, with half of the jail term to be spent in custody. Dr. Obeta, who “helped organise the organ harvesting plot after receiving a kidney transplant at the Royal Free in July 2021 from another Nigerian, got a higher jail sentence — 10 years — two-thirds of which must be served in prison.
The attempted transplant by the Ekweremadus was foiled by the hospital in March 2022 after it was discovered when the male victim, referred to as C in the court (because the identity of victims of modern slavery is protected) reported to the police in May, 2022, fearing for his life.
In his remarks, the prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, said: “Kidney donation for reward is a substantial, internationally prohibited commercial industry that exploits economically vulnerable individuals.”
Meanwhile, speaking to the BBC’s Simi Joloaso, Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia, said she was in shock when the police in the UK came to arrest her and her parents: “My brother and sisters were at home when the doorbell rang. We thought it was our parents but it was rather the police that showed up. My first reaction was shock.”
