Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has attacked the Federal Government of Nigeria for doing nothing to save the neck of Ike Ekweremadu, a former deputy senate president, who was sentenced to nine years and eight months by a UK court on Friday for plotting to harvest a man’s kidney for his sick daughter. Beatrice, his wife, was also handed four years, six months sentence. The accomplice medical doctor, Obinna Obeta slammed 10 years on him.
Chief Alex Ogbonnia, the spokesperson for Ohanaeze Ndigbo, argued that the Federal Government did nothing to help Ekweremadu. In other words, the FG left his son to the wolves!
In an interview with The Punch, Ogbonnia stated, “They did not treat him like someone who has served meritoriously in this country. Rather, while he was facing the travails, the Federal Government came out with charges and allegations of corruption and seized his properties.
“This is a man who has been around you, walked with you for years and when he needed your help, there you were busy talking about auctioning his properties. All those things indicated that it was not only the UK court that was after him, but the FG was also after him.”
Describing the judgment as ‘shocking’ and ‘painful’, the spokesman said Igbo leaders would pay Ekweremadu a visit soon, adding that the former lawmaker would come out of the experience ‘stronger and better’.
He added, “Before now, although not as Ohanaeze, we have visited him in prison. We still intend to do so even as he begins his sentence. It is shocking and painful that an illustrious Igbo man of that calibre will be involved in this kind of sentencing. However, there is nothing we can do about it for now.
Recall the trio of Ekweremadu, Beatrice and Obeta were convicted of conspiracy to arrange the travel of a young Nigerian man who was identified as David Nwamini to Britain in order to exploit him for his kidney.
As reported by TheNEWS on Thursday, March 23, 2023 after a six-week trial at the Old Baily, former Deputy Senate President, the two and their doctor, Dr Obinna Obeta were been found guilty of organ trafficking.
“However, the Ekweremadus’ daughter Sonia, 25, wept as she was cleared of the same charge on Thursday.
The victim, a 21-year-old street trader from Lagos, was brought to the UK last year to provide a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Emweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56; and Obeta, 51, were found guilty of facilitating that travel to exploit the young man.
They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.
This is the first time defendants have been convicted under the Modern Slavery Act of organ harvesting and conspiracy.
As reported by Channels Television, 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 behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”, Davies told the jury.
He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.
Davies added, “What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal. It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty.”
Ekweremadu, who denied the charge, told the court 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.
The judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, will pass sentence at a later date.” And that date is today.