Former senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, is currently cooling off in a United Kingdom prison where he will remain until July 7, at least.
Ekweremadu, a 60-year-old ranking member of Nigeria’s major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is not alone in confinement. His wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, has also been committed to prison custody.
Both Nigerians were charged with conspiring to transport a boy to the UK in order to harvest his organs. The boy, 15, has been taken into care by the Met Police who, according to the BBC, said agencies were working to support the minor.
Ekweremadu and his 55-year-old wife appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in west London earlier on Thursday. The court heard that they were involved in a conspiracy to arrange and/or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation.
They were denied bail after prosecutors told the court that they needed permission to proceed because of jurisdiction issues.
“In respect of these offences the (UK) Attorney General’s consent is required and the Crown require 14 days for that to be obtained,” Prosecutor Damla Ayas was quoted to have told the court.
Most of the alleged offences took place in the UK, magistrates heard. The Ekweremadus, who were arrested two days ago, have been remanded in custody to appear at the same court on 7 July.
How did we they get here?
Reports emanating from Nigeria say the Ekweremadus have a daughter who is battling kidney problems. Sonia Chinonso Ekweremmadu, who is reported to be a customer care representative with telecoms firm MTN, has, according to reports been on dialysis, a medical procedure involving the removal of excess water, solutes and toxins from the blood in people whose kidneys can no longer perform these functions naturally.
The Ekweremadus were said to have ‘contracted’ a boy they picked from the streets of Nigeria and promised him heaven on earth if he donated one of his kidneys to hailing Sonia.
Trouble began when, according to Arise TV, the boy, identified as David Ukpo, disclosed his real age to the doctors who were supposed to remove one of his kidneys at the Royal Free Hospital. Ekweremadu, according to documents cited by Nigerian media, had written the UK government claiming the boy was 21. The couple named Sonia in applications made to that regard, Nigerian media reported Thursday, citing ‘leaked’ documents.
UK doctors reportedly cancelled the procedure on David whom prosecutors alleged was taken from a family that treated him like a slave.
Ekweremadu and his wife were arrested at Heathrow airport. Prosecutors believed that they were on their way to Istanbul, Turkey, to procure another organ after their plan for David fell apart.
The Nigerian duo were remanded to prison custody until July 7 when the case will be heard again.
Denial
Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife have denied all charges of human trafficking and organ harvesting filed against them.
The couple said they did not procure a minor in order to abduct and harvest his organ, contradicting the charges filed by the Metropolitan Police at Uxbridge Magistrate’s Court, London.
The charges were “nothing short of preposterous,” the Ekweremadus said through their lawyer Gavin Irwin, who added that the couple never “arranged transport for anyone with the intention to exploit them.”
Who is Ekweremadu?
Ekweremadu has been a member of the Nigerian Senate since 2003. He was the Deputy Senate President between 2015 and 2019. He sought but failed to clinch the PDP ticket for the governorship race in his home Enugu State.
He was recently made a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln, and served three terms as deputy president of the Senate, from 2007 to 2019.
A University of Lincoln spokesman said: “Visiting professors are often, as is in this case, non-resident at the university, unpaid and advisory.
“We are deeply concerned about the nature of these allegations but as this is an active police investigation, we cannot comment further at this stage.”
