The United Kingdom has reportedly rejected a request from the Nigerian government to transfer former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, to Nigeria to serve the remainder of his prison sentence for organ trafficking.
According to a report by The Guardian (UK), a Nigerian delegation led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, held talks with officials of the UK Ministry of Justice last week, seeking Ekweremadu’s transfer under a prisoner-transfer arrangement.
The Guardian quoted a UK Ministry of Justice source as saying the transfer request was turned down over concerns that Nigeria could not guarantee Ekweremadu would continue to serve his sentence if returned home.
Ekweremadu UK Ordeal
Ekweremadu, 63, was in 2023 sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison after a UK court found him, his wife Beatrice, and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, guilty of conspiring to exploit a young Nigerian man for his kidney. The organ was intended for their daughter, Sonia, at a private London hospital.
The conviction was the first under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act for organ trafficking.
While the UK government declined to comment on Ekweremadu’s case specifically, officials stressed that any prisoner transfer is entirely at the UK’s discretion and must be consistent with the interests of justice. Another government source was quoted as saying the UK “will not tolerate modern slavery and any offender will face the full force of UK law.”
Beatrice Ekweremadu, who was sentenced to four years and six months, was released after serving half of her term and has returned to Nigeria.
During sentencing, Justice Jeremy Johnson described the scheme as part of a “despicable trade,” saying organ harvesting is a form of slavery that treats human beings and their bodies as commodities to be bought and sold. He identified Ekweremadu as the “driving force” behind the plot and noted that the case represented a “substantial fall from grace” for the former lawmaker.
Court documents showed that in February 2022, the victim, identified as “C”, was taken to a private renal unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London for a proposed £80,000 kidney transplant. He was falsely presented as Sonia Ekweremadu’s cousin who had voluntarily agreed to donate his organ.
Despite an attempt to bribe a medical secretary, the hospital declined the procedure in March 2022 but did not immediately notify the police. The plot later unravelled after the victim fled and sought help, saying he feared being taken back to Nigeria for another transplant attempt.
Obinna Obeta, who had himself received a kidney transplant at the same hospital in 2021 from another allegedly trafficked donor, is serving a 10-year sentence, with two-thirds to be spent in custody.
At the time of filing the original report, Nigeria’s High Commission in London had yet to comment.