Tobias Sylvester
Former deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu has been found guilty of organ trafficking by an old Bailey Court in the United Kingdom.
KanyiDaily recalls that Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, were facing charges over alleged human trafficking and organ harvesting of an alleged 15 years old boy, David Nwamini Ukpo.
The couple were charged for allegedly trafficking David Ukpo from Lagos into the UK to harvest his organs for their ailing daughter, Sonia Ekweremadu.
During the trial on Thursday, March 23, Ekweremadu, 60, his wife, Beatrice, 56, daughter Sonia 25, and a doctor involved in the case, Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a 21-year-old man to Britain with a view to his exploitation.
The 21-year-Lagos street trader 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.
In February 2022 the 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”.
Davies added: “What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal. It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty.”
Ekweremadu, who denied the charge, told the court he was the victim of a scam. Obeta, who also denied the charge, claimed the man was not offered a reward for his kidney and was acting altruistically. Beatrice denied any knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Sonia did not give evidence.
WhatsApp messages showed to the court revealed Obeta charged Ekweremadu 4.5m naira (about £8,000) made up of an “agent fee” and a “donor fee”.
Ekweremadu and Obeta admitted falsely claiming the man was Sonia’s cousin in his visa application and in documents presented to the hospital.
Davies said Ekweremadu ignored medical advice to find a donor for his daughter among genuine family members. He said: “At no point in time was there ever any intention for a family member close, medium or distant to do what could be paid for from a pool of donors.”
Sonia, who remains reliant on weekly dialysis, declined to give evidence but it was said on her behalf she knew nothing of a reward offered to donors. She tearfully hugged her father as he was sent down from the dock.
Following the guilty verdicts, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson remanded the defendants into custody to be sentenced on 5 May.
KanyiDaily recalls that a letter addressed to the UK Embassy and personally signed by Ike Ekweremadu indicated that the young man was to donate a kidney to his daughter.
