Nigeria’s former deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu has been found guilty of organ trafficking by a United Kingdom court.
Ekweremadu, 60, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.
They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.
“The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University,” the court heard. Sonia Ekweremadu aged 25, was found not guilty.
She was cleared of the same charge.
In February 2022, the man was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant. For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo translator between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.
The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. He said they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.
The victim, a street trader from Lagos, was brought to the UK last year to provide a kidney.
He said; “I was promised opportunities in the UK for helping, and I only realised what was going on when I met doctors at the hospital.”
While it is lawful to donate a kidney, it becomes criminal if there is a reward of money or other material advantage.
When he was rejected as unsuitable, the court heard the Ekweremadus transferred their interest to Turkey and set about finding another donor.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, north-west London, and Dr Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the charge against them, saying he was the victim of a scam. Obeta, who also denied the charge, claimed the man was not offered a reward for his kidney and was acting altruistically. Beatrice denied any knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Sonia did not give evidence.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
