A former deputy president of the Nigerian Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, along with his wife, and a doctor have been found guilty of organ trafficking in the UK, marking the first conviction of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
The group was convicted of conspiring to bring a young man to London from Lagos, Nigeria, with the intent to exploit him for his kidney.
The man was offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after she dropped out of a master’s degree program due to kidney disease.
In February 2022, the man was presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in an attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant.
The Ekweremadus’ 25-year-old Sonia, who has a serious kidney condition, wept in court as she was absolved by the jury, which deliberated for nearly 14 hours.
The prosecutor accused Ekweremadu and his accomplices of treating the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward.” The group entered into an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man, according to the prosecutor.
Ekweremadu, who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, was accused of displaying “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy.”
