British Government has rejected a request by Nigeria to deport the former three consecutive term Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who is serving a prison term in the United Kingdom for organ trafficking, The Guardian UK reports on Monday.
The lawyer cum politician was sentenced to nine years and eight months in 2023 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 kidney to be harvested was intended for the Ekweremadus’ daughter, Sonia, in a private London hospital.
According to The Guardian, the conviction was the first under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act for organ trafficking.
Reports say that Nigeria’s delegation, led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, met officials at the UK Ministry of Justice last week to request that Ekweremadu be transferred to Nigeria to serve the remainder of his sentence.
The Guardian however quoted a Ministry of Justice source as saying the request was rejected over concerns that Nigeria could not guarantee Ekweremadu would continue serving his sentence after return.
According to the report, the UK government, said it could not comment on specific prisoners but stressed that any transfer “is at our discretion following a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice.”
Another UK government source told the paper that “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, has since been released after serving half of her term and is back in Nigeria.
At the sentencing stage, Justice Jeremy Johnson described the trio’s actions as part of a “despicable trade.”
He said: “The harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery. It treats human beings and their bodies as commodities to be bought and sold.”
The judge referred to Ekweremadu as the “driving force” behind the plot, noting that the case marked a “substantial fall from grace.”
In February 2022, the victim, identified in court as C, was taken to a private renal unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London for a proposed £80,000 transplant.
He was falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin who had volunteered to donate his kidney.