Nigerian Senator Faces Jail for Illegal Organ Harvesting

Nigerian senator, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu at their 2022 New Year’s celebrations before the allegations came to light. Photo: Ike Ekweremadu/Facebook.

Ike Ekweremadu, a Nigerian senator, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, his wife and a doctor were found guilty by the UK court on Thursday for trafficking a market trader from Lagos to the UK to harvest his kidney. The procedure was done at the Royal Free Hospital, which is part of the publicly run National Health System in the UK.

Ike Ekweremadu alongside his wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu smuggled a 21-year-old Nigerian man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to the UK with the intention of harvesting his kidney for their daughter, Sonia Ekweremadu, 25. Along with the couple, Dr. Obinna Obeta is facing up to ten years in jail. Sonia Ekweremadu was cleared of any charges.

Sonia said in court that she suffers from a significant and deteriorating kidney condition, which requires dialysis until she receives a transplant. Her condition forced her to drop out from her master’s degree in film at Newcastle University in December 2019.

The prosecutor of the case, Hugh Davis KC added that “it is no defense to say [Ike Ekweremadu] acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty.” 

It is lawful to donate a kidney but only if it is done altruistically. If someone receives a reward for their donation, it is classified as a crime. In turn for providing his kidney, the victim revealed that the Ekweremadus agreed to reward him with £7,000 and job opportunities in the UK. 

The  Ekweremadus wanted “somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact,” said Davis.

The Ekweremadus and Dr. Obeta treated the man and previous potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward” and entered the deal as a “commercial transaction,” said Davis. Whatsapp messages revealed that Dr. Obeta was paid about £8,000 which consisted of the “agency fee” and “donor fee,” according to the Guardian.

Ike Ekweremadu’s wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu and his daughter, Sonia Ekweremadu outside the Old Bailey court in the UK. at the start of the trial last month. Photo: Tom Symonds/BBC.

In September 2021, Ike Ekweremadu enlisted the help of his brother, Diwe Ekweremadu, to help find a kidney donor for his daughter. Diwe has a background in medicine and was the former classmate of Dr. Obeta who was living in South London at the time. Dr. Obeta had a kidney transplant the previous month under the same conditions in 2021. He incorrectly stated that someone was his cousin to also get a kidney transplant for himself. He was able to get the Ekeweremadus access to resources to find an underground donor in the same way he did.

The victim  claimed in February 2022 he was forced to present himself at the Royal Free Hospital as Sonia’s cousin in order to persuade medics to carry out the £80,000 private transplant. A medical secretary from the hospital, Ebere Agbasonu, acted as an Igbo translator to help coach the victim to convince the staff that he was an altruistic donor but they were not convinced. She was paid £1,500 for her service, according to Whatsapp messages shown to the jury.

An investigation started after the young man ran away from London for days before walking into a police station more than 20 miles away in Staines, Surrey, crying and in distress in May 2022. The senator has been in detention since June 2022 until the hearing until this past month since he was deemed a flight risk.

After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, Ekweremadu and Obeta admitted falsely claiming that the man was Sonia’s cousin in his visa application and in the documents presented to the hospital. Ekweremadus ignored medical advice to first look into potential donors within their family and opted to look for someone that could be paid to become a donor.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that the guilty verdict was the first time someone was convicted in Britain of human trafficking for the purpose of organ harvesting. 

“This conviction sends out a clear message across the world, the UK will not tolerate the international industry in illegal organ removal,” said Detective Inspector Esther Richardson, from the Met’s Modern Slavery and Child Exploitation team, in a statement to Al Jazeera.

The trio will be sentenced in the same court on May 5 under the Modern Slavery Act.