Ike Ekweremadu, the former deputy Senate President of Nigeria, has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison for organ trafficking. The sentencing was carried out on Friday at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey in the UK. The verdict was reached on March 23, and Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and Obinna Obeta, a doctor who acted as the middleman, were found guilty of conspiring to bring a 21-year-old to London to exploit him for his kidney. This is the first such verdict under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in the UK.
During the trial, the prosecution accused the Ekweremadus and Obeta of treating the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. Davies also mentioned that Ekweremadu and his accomplices entered into an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the victim, offering him up to £7,000 in reward. These actions, according to the prosecutor, reflected a sense of entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy on the part of Ekweremadu. They were alleged to have attempted to convince doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in London to perform an £80,000 transplant on the donor, who was presented as the cousin of their daughter, Sonia. The Ekweremadus and Obeta denied the charges, maintaining that they were the victims of a scam.
While Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia, did not enter any defence, notable personalities around the world including former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), appealed to the UK government to be lenient with the Ekweremadus. The Senate, House of Representatives, International Human Rights Commission (IHRC), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) parliament also asked the UK court to consider the valuable contributions made by the lawmaker in Nigeria and West Africa.
Following the sentencing, Ekweremadu was sent to prison for nearly 10 years, while his wife was sentenced to four years and six months in jail.
The Prosecutor, Hugh Davies, reading out the verdict
