– I’m scared, can’t return to Nigeria, victim begs for UK stay
– MET warns of rise in multimillion pound modern slaver
The 11-month London trial of former deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice and their United Kingdom-based medical ‘middleman’, Obinna Obeta, ended on a sour note for the Nigerians yesterday following their sentencing to a total of 24 years and four months.
They were jailed for conspiring to arrange the travel of a young man, David Nwamini, from Nigeria to London for the purpose of harvesting his kidney for the Ekweremadus’ daughter, Sonia.
The court branded Eke Ekweremadu’s fate as a substantial fall from grace.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the trial was Britain’s first illegal organ-harvesting prosecution.
Nwamini pleaded to be allowed to remain in the UK because “I worry for my safety in Nigeria.”
A MET official said there seemed to be a sharp rise in modern slavery, and confirmed that more cases of organ harvesting were under investigation.
They had been convicted in March by the court which only handed down punishment yesterday.
The 60-year-old former DSP was jailed for nine years and eight months, Beatrice, 56, got four and a half years while Obeta, 51, will spend 10 years in jail.
In the televised judgement yesterday, Mr Justice Johnson told the convicts: “You each played a part in that despicable trade ”that “preys the poverty, misery and desperation” of vulnerable people.
“People-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery,” he said.
“It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold.”
He said Nwamini would have “faced spending the rest of his life with only one kidney and without the requisite funding for the required aftercare,” if the planned harvesting of his kidney had gone as planned.
He said there had been no consent by Nwamini to the harvesting of his kidney “in any meaningful sense.”
Nwamini, who was said to be a street hawker in Lagos, said in a statement read in court that he “would never (have) agreed to any of this.”
“My body is not for sale,” he said and pleaded to be allowed to live in the UK because he could be harmed if he returned to Nigeria.
“I cannot think about going home to Nigeria,” he said.
“These people are extremely powerful and I worry for my family.”
He claimed someone visited his father in Nigeria and asked the father to get him to drop the case.
“Even though I live here in the UK at the moment I know I need to be careful too.
“I have no one here, no family, no friends.
“I am having to start my life again.
“I’m worried about my family in Nigeria, but I have been told my dad had been visited and was told to drop the case in the UK.”
He ruled out seeking compensation from those he labeled ‘bad people’ for any such money would be “cursed and bad luck”.
He plans to work, get an education and play football.
The London Daily Mail quoted the prosecution as saying Nwamini was offered up to £7,000 and the promise of a better life in the UK.
It said the convicts had presented him to medics at the Royal Free as Sonia’s cousin whereas they are not related.
At some point, the victim was photographed sharing a meal with Sonia to create the impression of a family relationship, jurors were told.
But medics at the Royal Free remained unconvinced, citing the donor’s ‘incongruous’ relationship with the recipient and their ‘disparity’.
When the transplant bid failed, the Ekweremadus switched to Turkey to explore the possibility of finding more potential donors, the court was told.
The police commenced their investigation after Nwamini ran away from London and slept rough for days before walking into a police station more than 20 miles away in Staines in Surrey, crying and in distress.
He told the police how he fled in fear for his life after overhearing a plan to take him back to Nigeria for the procedure after the transplant plan in London failed.
The investigation exposed Ekweremadu as sponsor of the victim’s trip.
Sonia’s parents were later arrested on June 21 last year as they arrived on a flight to Heathrow, stepping off the plane with $30,000.
A police search of Obeta’s address on the Old Kent Road in South London revealed a fake affidavit purporting the victim and Sonia as biological cousins.
Detectives also found in the convicts’ phones a stream of messages detailing the progress of the failed organ transplant plan.
Sonia had become sick while studying for a master’s degree at Newcastle University in December 2019.
Obeta was the former medical school classmate of Ike Ekweremadu’s brother and had undergone a kidney transplant at the Royal Free Hospital himself.
His donor also came from the street market in Lagos and knew the victim in the case.
The defendants denied conspiracy to arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation, claiming they believed the victim was acting “altruistically”.
Sonia was cleared of wrongdoing by the jury and watched her parents being sentenced from the public gallery.
She had shed tears back then.
But yesterday, she waved to her parents as they were led out of the court.
Neither of them showed any emotion as they were sentenced.
However, Sonia in an interview with BBC Pidgin yesterday, shortly after the sentencing, said: “It’s sad. It’s been really hard to wrap my head around it.
“I understand the conviction. Personally, I disagree with it; however, that’s from a very biased perspective as their daughter, and I would obviously back my parents.
“However, the law has taken its course, and we just have to now move forward as a family.”
She added: “I don’t think it will ever be the same again. And obviously, I feel guilty because I feel like all these have happened because of me,” she said, while holding back tears.
On her parents after the sentence was passed:“They are quite calm, surprisingly. But I can’t really speak about what they are feeling. This is just from an outside perspective of me seeing them. They are okay, they are just neutral.”
“Life is just some dynamic. Like you’re one day in your house chilling and the next day your whole life is turned around, upside down.”
“My main focus is to try to help, specifically people with kidney conditions. This is just to show them they don’t need to be scared.
“I will continue to support my parents and siblings as well.”
While kidney donation is not illegal in Britain, it is unlawful to do it for financial or material reward.
It was the first time organ harvesting conspiracy charges had been brought under the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act.
The maximum sentence under the legislation is life imprisonment.
Ike Ekweremadu from Amachara Mpu Village in Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State represented Enugu West Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) until his arrest last June.
He is a lawyer by profession.
Until his election into the Senate he had served as the pioneer Chairman of Aninri Local Government Council when it was created in 1997. He was appointed Chief of Staff, Enugu State Government House and subsequently Secretary to the Government of Enugu State from 1999 to 2003.
He was first elected into the Senate in 2003.
Multimillion-pound modern slavery on the rise, says Met official
Speaking against the backdrop of the Ekweremadu case yesterday, Met’s modern slavery and child exploitation lead, Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, warned of a sharp rise in modern slavery.
He said more cases of organ harvesting were under investigation.
Criminal exploitation of adults, according to Furphy, has soared by 30% in the last 12 months.
Sexual exploitation of female victims increased by around 24% and domestic servitude rose by 12% in the same period.
“The trajectory of modern slavery crimes shows very little signs of slowing down,” he said.
He added: “They are making millions and millions and millions a year, every year, most of which is transported to other parts of Europe and further afield.
“It’s in our communities, it’s in the services that we use.
“It’s in the industry that builds road networks, buildings, or houses.
“It’s in the beauty industry.
“It’s in the sex industry.
“My advice is to be vigilant, to report even if it’s just a suspicion that you think something’s not quite right.
“Don’t think a tiny bit of information or intelligence is insignificant, you never know that might just break the back of an organised crime group that are exploiting people.”
It’s a dent on Nigeria’s image – Adamu Garba
Reacting to the development, a former presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamu Garba, called it a dent on Nigeria’s image and sovereignty.
“I really don’t like this. I see it as a dent upon the image of our country and its sovereignty,” he said on his Twitter handle.
He added: “A whole former deputy Senate president to serve a jail term in a foreign land? What kind of country are we?
“If Nigeria is serious on this issue, we should immediately summon a UK ambassador to Nigeria, express our displeasure with the situation, minding not the attitude of Senator Ekweremadu but the institution he represents, then, perhaps afterwards, negotiate within our diplomatic basket for what we can give them in order to get him back to Nigeria.”
Some prominent Nigerians including former President Olusegun Obasanjo had pleaded for leniency for Ekweremadu.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Clerk, the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, last month, the former President asked the Clerk to intervene and ensure the UK government tempered justice with mercy on the matter.
He said: “It is with great pleasure that I write in respect of Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who I have known for over two decades. Within this period, I have followed and watched, with keen interest, Ike Ekweremadu’s inspiring career which traversed private legal practice and public administration.
“I recall, with fond memories, the beginnings of our political and social relationship at the outset of our collective quest for democratic rebirth for our fatherland.
“During my administration as a democratically-elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007, Ike Ekweremadu and I had close relationship and interactions as staunch members of our political party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and more so as he got elected into the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2003, of which he has since remained a member till date.”
Obasanjo said while he realised the implications of the action of the Ekweremadus. “I dare say it is unpleasant and condemnable and can’t be tolerated in any sane or civilized society.”
However, he pleaded with the Chief Clerk to use his good offices to “intervene and appeal to the court and the government of the United Kingdom to be magnanimous enough to temper justice with mercy and let punishment that may have to come take their good character and parental instinct and care into consideration.”
