A former three-term Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, 60, was on Friday jailed in the UK for 9 years and eight months for an organ trafficking plot.
His spouse, Beatrice, 56, was additionally jailed for 4 years and 6 months on account of her “extra restricted involvement” within the plot, because the courtroom described Ekweremadu because the “driving pressure all through” the method.
A medical physician, Obinna Obeta, 56, additionally bagged 10 years after the decide discovered that he had “focused the potential donor, who was younger, poor and weak”.
In the meantime, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has berated the Federal Authorities for not serving to the embattled senator.
The prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, mentioned the three defendants had been responsible of trafficking with ‘the best degree of culpability’.
Saturday PUNCH reported how Ekweremadu, who served because the Deputy Speaker and Speaker of the Financial Group of West African State Parliament, was arrested on June 23, 2022, by the London Metropolitan Police for reportedly ‘conspiring to convey a baby to the UK for organ harvesting’.
The police mentioned investigation into the matter was launched after detectives had been alerted to ‘potential offenses below the fashionable slavery laws in Could 2022’. It mentioned the kid had been safeguarded and it was working carefully with companions on continued help.
His case was scheduled for additional listening to on July 7, 2022, after which he was mentioned to have been discovered responsible of the allegations and remanded in jail, awaiting sentencing.
Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor and Nationwide Fashionable Slavery Lead on the Crown Prosecution Service, Lynette Woodrow, mentioned it had been “our first conviction for trafficking for the needs of organ removing in England and Wales”.
“With all trafficking offenses, the consent of the particular person trafficked isn’t any protection. The legislation is evident; you can not consent to your individual exploitation,” Woodrow mentioned.
The courtroom mentioned the physician lied to docs and falsely claimed the younger potential donor was a cousin of the senator’s daughter, Sonia, who urgently wanted a transplant.
The decide mentioned the three left the potential donor going through a “substantial and long-term impression on his every day life”.
“Individuals trafficking throughout worldwide borders for the harvesting of human organs is a type of slavery,” the decide added.
In a sufferer’s private assertion, the 21-year-old Nigerian market dealer, who was not named, advised the courtroom he used to hope day-after-day to be given the chance to return to the UK to work or examine.
He mentioned to make it occur, he agreed to medical exams in Lagos and conferences with docs in London, believing that they had been required for his UK visa through the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 21-year-old mentioned he solely realised what was deliberate when he met docs on the Royal Free Hospital in London who started discussing a kidney transplant.
He advised the courtroom he wouldn’t have agreed to it, including that his physique was ‘not on the market’.
The sufferer is now being helped by a charity within the UK, in response to his lawyer in Nigeria.
In his assertion, he mentioned he couldn’t consider going again to Nigeria as a result of the folks for which he was being prosecuted had been highly effective folks and that he was frightened for his security.
He refused to use for monetary compensation from the Ekweremadu household, telling a detective he didn’t want something from them.
Obasanjo, others’ intervention
Through the courtroom proceedings, former President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote to the UK courtroom, begging for leniency.
Additionally, the Home of Representatives appealed to the courtroom to “mood justice with mercy”, whereas urging the Federal Authorities to take diplomatic steps to intervene in his trial. It cited “the predicaments of Ekweremadu’s ailing daughter, who wants monetary help and parental love of her mother and father to scale via her dire well being problem, noting that the Ekweremadus will need to have learnt their classes.”
Equally, the Financial Group of West African States Parliament, the place Ekweremadu as soon as served, in a letter by the Speaker of the ECOWAS parliament, Dr Sidie Mohamed Tunis, appealed for leniency, saying it believed classes had been learnt by everyone.
FG did nothing – Ohanaeze
Reacting to the UK courtroom’s judgment, the spokesperson for Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, mentioned the Federal Authorities did nothing to assist Ekweremadu.
In an interview with one among our correspondents, he said, “They didn’t deal with him like somebody who has served meritoriously on this nation. Reasonably, whereas he was going through the travails, the Federal Authorities got here out with prices and allegations of corruption and seized his properties.
“It is a man who has been round you, walked with you for years and when he wanted your assist, there have been busy speaking about auctioning his properties. All these issues indicated that it was not solely the UK courtroom that was after him, however the FG was additionally after him.”
Describing the judgment as ‘stunning’ and ‘painful’, the spokesman mentioned Igbo leaders would pay Ekweremadu a go to quickly, including that the previous lawmaker would come out of the expertise ‘stronger and higher’.
He added, “Prior to now, though not as Ohanaeze, we have now visited him in jail. We nonetheless intend to take action whilst he begins his sentence. It’s stunning and painful that an illustrious Igbo man of that calibre might be concerned in this sort of sentencing. Nonetheless, there may be nothing we are able to do about it for now.
“However I consider Ekweremadu will come out stronger and higher. He has at all times been a robust and brave man. Ohanaeze prays he comes out wholesome to face the world once more.”
Reps advise Ekweremadu
The Home of Representatives has urged a former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, to attraction the sentencing.
Reacting to the judgment on Friday, the Chairman of the Home Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Benjamin Kalu, urged Ekweremadu to file an attraction, describing the sentencing as “unhappy and unlucky.”
Kalu mentioned, “He ought to train his proper of attraction and attraction in opposition to the judgment. He has at all times been a person of dignity. What occurred was unlucky in his effort to be a terrific father to his sick little one.
“I’m not positive he hid his intentions for medical tourism to the UK to assist his little one. What I equally surprise is why the British Embassy didn’t deny him a journey visa, figuring out that the expressed intention was in opposition to their legislation. The funding of the establishment on this man is large and Nigeria will miss his contributions to the parliament.”
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, couldn’t be reached on the phone and he had but to answer to a message from our correspondent as of press time.
SANs react
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, talking on ideas on whether or not an association might be made with the UK for the senator to serve his sentence in Nigeria, said, “When it comes to alternate of concepts and programmes, arresting an individual who’s attempting to flee justice from one place to a different and the like; there may be mutual authorized help in that regard to going via the extradition course of or proceedings.
“Moreover, every nation is impartial in its judicial and authorized system. For a Nigerian jailed within the UK, for example, Nigeria can’t intervene. This is identical case even when a British citizen is jailed in Nigeria. The UK can’t intervene nor can Nigeria be compelled to launch such an individual or commute the phrases of imprisonment.
“All that may be accomplished is what I’ve seen happening, with the appeals by the Nationwide Meeting, ECOWAS Parliament, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and different nice Nigerians.”
One other senior lawyer, Mr Yusuf Ali (SAN), mentioned Nigerians ought to borrow a leaf from the UK justice system.
He mentioned, “The lesson for all of us is that we should additionally make our judicial system work. That begins from the purpose of investigation. Ekeremadu’s matter is a classical case of a working justice system. Earlier than he was even taken to courtroom, correct investigation had already been accomplished.
“In Nigeria, folks will first be taken to courtroom earlier than they’ll begin searching for proof. We must always not put the cart earlier than the horse.”
