The United Kingdom has reportedly rejected Nigeria’s request to repatriate former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who is serving a prison sentence in the UK for organ trafficking.
Ekweremadu, 63, was sentenced in 2023 to nine years and eight months after a British court found him, his wife Beatrice, and a medical doctor Obinna Obeta, guilty of plotting to exploit a young Nigerian man for his kidney.
The organ was intended for the couple’s daughter, Sonia, at a private London hospital.
DAILY GAZETTE gathered that the conviction was the first-ever under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act for organ trafficking.
A Nigerian delegation led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, met with officials at the UK Ministry of Justice last week to request that Ekweremadu be allowed to complete his sentence in Nigeria.
But according to the report, UK authorities declined the request, citing concerns that Nigeria could not guarantee that he would continue to serve his sentence once transferred.
Although the UK government did not comment on the specific case, a Ministry of Justice source stressed that prisoner transfers are granted only at the UK’s discretion and only when they serve “the interests of justice.”
Another government source was quoted as saying that the UK takes modern slavery seriously and ensures offenders face the full weight of its laws.
Beatrice Ekweremadu, who received a four-and-a-half-year sentence, has already been released after serving half her jail term and has returned to Nigeria.
During sentencing in 2023, Justice Jeremy Johnson condemned the defendants’ actions as part of a “despicable trade,” describing organ harvesting as a form of slavery that reduces people to commodities.
He identified Ekweremadu as the “driving force” behind the scheme, calling the case a significant fall from grace.
The victim, referred to in court as C, was taken in February 2022 to the Royal Free Hospital in London for a planned £80,000 kidney transplant.
He had been falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin who willingly volunteered to donate an organ.
Even though the hospital declined the procedure in March 2022, an attempted bribe was reported, and the case only surfaced when the victim fled and sought protection, saying he feared being taken to Nigeria for another attempt.
Obeta, who arranged the process, previously received his own kidney transplant at the same hospital in 2021 from another allegedly trafficked donor.
He is serving a 10-year term, two-thirds of which must be spent behind bars.
Nigeria’s move to bring Ekweremadu back home has drawn public criticism.
DAILY GAZETTE has not independently verified The Guardian’s report, and the Nigerian High Commission in London had not issued a statement at the time this report was filed.
