Former Deputy Senate President of Nigeria, Ike Ekweremadu, has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison by a United Kingdom court, along with his wife Beatrice and medical doctor Obinna Obeta.
The three were found guilty of criminally conspiring to exploit a 21-year-old Lagos street trader by bringing him to London and extracting his kidney in a failed attempt to treat Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia’s kidney disease. Ekweremadu and Obeta treated the young man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward” in what was described as an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” by prosecutor Hugh Davies KC.
This conviction marks the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act. Ekweremadu’s entitled and exploitative behavior demonstrated “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy,” according to Davies.
Ekweremadu agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter without making any inquiries about the person’s circumstances of poverty, and for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact with the individual. Davies stated that Ekweremadu’s actions were not just expedient in his daughter’s clinical interests but also exploitation, which is a criminal act.
It is not a defense to say that he acted out of love for his daughter because her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty. Along with his prison sentence, Ekweremadu’s wife received four years and six months, while Obeta was sentenced to ten years, and his medical license was suspended.