Ike Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President of Nigeria, his wife Beatrice, and a middleman named Dr. Obinna Obeta were all sentenced to 26 years in prison on Friday afternoon by the Old Bailey Court in London for the charge of organ harvesting.
It is expected that Ekweremadu will spend approximately ten years behind bars, his wife will spend six years, and Dr. Obeta will spend ten years behind bars. Following their conviction for organ trafficking in March, former Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate Ike Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice, and their middleman medical doctor Obinna Obeta will receive their sentence today. This was the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, and Obeta, 51, were found guilty of conspiring to arrange the travel to Britain of a young man named David Nwamini in order to exploit him for his kidney. The kidney was necessary for the lawmaker’s sick daughter, Sonia. Ekweremadu is 60 years old, and his wife Beatrice is 56 years old. Obeta is 51 years old.
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After a six-week trial and conviction at the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, the Ekweremadus and their doctor might have to face the harsh reality of a possible 10-year jail term for violating the Modern Slavery Act. This sentence would be imposed as a result of their involvement in the case, which was heard at London’s Central Criminal Court. It’s the judge. The sentence will be handed down by Mr. Justice Jeremy Johnson.
You may remember that Hugh Davies KC, the prosecutor, testified in court that Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the potential donor, as well as other people who could give money, as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward.” He stated that they engaged in what he referred to as a “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the individual.
According to what Davies said in front of the jury, Ekweremadu’s actions demonstrated “entitlement, dishonesty, and hypocrisy.”
He stated that Ekweremadu, who possessed multiple properties and had a workforce of eighty people, “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 own political protection, he wanted no direct contact.”
Davies continued by saying that “what he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia; rather, it was exploitation, and it was criminal.” The argument that he did what he did out of love for his daughter is not a valid defence. Her clinical requirements cannot be satisfied at the expense of exploiting a person who is living in poverty.
Ekweremadu, who denied the charge and claimed that he was the victim of a scam, told the court that he was tricked. Obeta, who likewise denied the charge, asserted that the man had not been offered a reward for the donation of his kidney and that he was doing so out of altruism. Beatrice denied that she had any knowledge of the alleged plot to kill the president. Sonia did not give evidence.
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Over the course of the past few days, the Nigerian Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) have all written letters to the British Authorities pleading for leniency on behalf of the lawmaker who is currently in hot water. Before this, the immediate past President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, had previously penned a letter to the authorities in the United Kingdom pleading on behalf of the legislator.
