On Tuesday, June 21, 2022, Senator Ike Ekweremadu (Deputy President of the Senate, 2007-2019) and his wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, were arrested at London Heathrow Airport after arriving on a flight from Turkey. On Thursday, June 23, 2023, they appeared in court charged with facilitating the travel of a minor from Nigeria with the aim of harvesting his kidney. The prosecutor, Damla Ayas, told Uxbridge Magistrate Court, "The victim was 15. In Nigeria, he was approached by both defendants. He was homeless on the streets of Lagos. They deceived him and promised him a better life in the UK. He was given a passport for a 41-year-old. The passport was illegally obtained by these defendants. He was provided with a medical travel visa saying the purpose of the travel was to provide medical treatment for the defendants' daughter who was undergoing dialysis in relation to a number of health issues. It was premeditated, it was planned. Blood tests were obtained in Nigeria and he travelled to the UK in February this year." Both husband and wife were remanded in custody until July 7, 2022 when the UK Attorney General, Suella Braverman, would be enabled at the Westminster Magistrate Court to determine whether the case would be tried in the country or Nigeria. Soon after that, a London based Nigerian doctor named Obinna Obeta was accused of conspiring with the Ekweremadus to steal kidney from the trafficked Nigerian minor to the UK.
The immediate concern of voracious hyenas in human flesh, practising the rule of supermen in Nigeria was to prove that the trafficked Nigerian to the UK whose kidney was to be stolen was not a teenager but a matured man who had consented to donating his kidney but reneged on reaching UK. On July 1, 2022, an Abuja Federal High Court presided over by Justice Inyang Ekwo, at the speed of light decided to order the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) to immediately release the biodata of David Ukpo Nwamini to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, for immediate transmission to the UK court in order to show that the victim of the would be kidney harvesting was 21 and not 15 years as alleged by the UK prosecutor. While the identity of the intended victim of kidney theft was kept secret in the UK, the Nigerian authorities disclosed his identity through the Court Order as David Ukpo Nwamini, born on October 12, 2000, with passport number B00569974, issued in Abuja on November 5, 2021 and to expire on November 4, 2026. Where did the prosecutor, Damla Ayas, get the information given to the Uxbridge Magistrate Court on 23 June 2022 that the victim of attempted kidney theft was fifteen but was issued with a passport for a 41-year-old? What necessitated the release of details of David's passport issued in Nigeria when the passport with which he travelled to the UK should have been available to the authorities in the UK? Simple question here is, where was the passport with which the intended victim of kidney theft travelled to UK? Dr Obinna Obeta, the custodian of David Ukpo Nwamini, might have disposed away the passport with which David entered Britain, thereby giving NIMC opportunity to issue a new backdated passport with a more reasonable date of birth in the name of David Ukpo Nwamini.
However, on July 7, 2022, the Westminster Magistrate Court ruled that David was not a minor but 21, and it decided that trial would continue on August 4, 2022, as the accused were to remain in custody. Present in the court to solidarize with Ekweremadu and his wife were former Senate President, David Mark, former Minister of Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, some Nigerian Senators led by Adamu Muhammad Bulkachuwa, Chairman Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Eyinnaya Abaribe and Nigeria High Commission in London. No one asked about the whereabout of David as their mission in the UK was to get the case transferred to Nigeria where the rule of supermen reigns. On Monday, 25 July 2022, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu was granted bail by the Common Serjeant of London, Richard Marks while the husband's bail was refused. How the drama of efforts to steal the kidney of David Ukpo Nwamini began worths recalling.
Dr Obinna Obeta, a resident in the UK was himself a recipient of kidney transplant in July 2021 at Royal Free Hospital , Hempstead. The kidney was severed from a Nigerian he had ferried to the UK and presented to the Authorities in the UK as his cousin. How he came to know that the daughter of Ike Ekweremadu and Beatrice Nwannameka Ekeremadu, Sonia, needed a kidney transplant has not been disclosed. However, Dr Obeta came to be associated with recruiting David Ukpo Nwamini, a street hawker in Lagos who augmented his living with working at building sites as labourer. A previous kidney donor to Dr Obeta, simply called Okoro, had introduced David to Dr Obeta who in turn introduced him to Ike Ekweremandu. Series of medical tests were carried out on David Ekpo Nwamini to ascertain that his blood and genome types matched that of the would-be recipient of his kidney, Sonia. Of course, he was deceived to believe that the medical tests were needed to enable him work for Ike Ekweremadu in the UK. With the medical confirmation that the blood and genotype of Sonia Ekweremadu matched perfectly with that of David Ukpo Nwamini, Senator Ike Ekweremadu addressed a letter to the Visa Section, British High Commission, Abuja, on 28 December 2021, stating, "I am writing in support of the visa application by Mr. Ukpo Nwamini David who is currently having medical investigations for a kidney donation to Ms Sonia Ekweremadu. David and Sonia will be at the Royal Free Hospital London, and I will be providing the necessary funding."
David arrived in the UK on 20 February 2022 and was accommodated by Dr Obeta who took him to the Royal Free Hospital for tests. According to WhatsApp messages retrieved from Dr Obinna Obeta and Ike Ekweremadu's telephones, Dr Obeta charged Ekweremadu N4.5 million (about £8, 000) for what he termed agent and donor fee. In addition to that, £1,500 would be paid to Evelyn Ebere Agbasonu, a medical secretary working in the Hospital who was recruited to serve as an interpreter from Igbo to English because Nwamini understood and spoke very little English. The hospital itself would be paid £80,000 to perform the operation. The hero of the failed kidney theft was Dr Peter Dupont of the Royal Free Hospital, Hempstead, who became suspicious that the supposed kidney donor was not a maternal cousin to the recipient. Since David had no British ID-Card, he had to present his passport to Dr Peter Dupont at an interview in order to identify himself as a legal immigrant before taking out his kidney for transplantation into Sonja. The interview revealed to Dr Dupont that David Ukpo Nwamini was a half-literate, his understanding of spoken and written English was poor and very limited, and then that he was a street hawker (trader) in Lagos. Dr Dupont could not believe that a half-literate street hawker in Lagos could be a maternal cousin to Sonia Ekweremadu the daughter of a wealthy Nigerian Senator. Moreover, David did not know that he was taken to London to get his kidney severed for transplantation into Sonia. Although the Passport of David shown to Dr Dupont in place of an ID-Card indicated his age as 41, Dr Dupont had the impression from the conversation he had with him that he could not be older than 15 years and was not aware that he was in UK to donate his kidney. That was why Dr Peter Dupont stopped the process of taking out the kidney of David Ukpo Nwamini at the Royal Free Hospital, Hempstead. Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, therefore, travelled to Turkey with the intention of transporting David and Sonia there for the purpose of severing the kidney of the former for transplantation to the latter.
Before Ike Ekweremadu and his wife could return from Turkey, David Ukpo Nwamini, had absconded from the home of Dr Obinna Obeta where he was kept under strict watch. After two days not knowing where he was, David saw a police station and he went in and told the receptionist May 5, 2022, "They carry me here. They want take my kidney (pointing to his chest). Doctor say I too young but them say, I must do it. Please help me make a no die." The receptionist searched in the computer and found out that he entered the country with a medical visa and his place of abode in UK was given as Dr Obeta's home address. The UK police provided temporary lodge for David hoping that Dr Obeta would eventually report to them about his missing guest from Nigeria, but he did not. Police enquiry showed that Mr. and Mrs. Ekweremadu had travelled from UK to Turkey on a joint, to and from, ticket and the arrest of the couple on arrival at Heathrow Airport was ordered. Thus, when they arrived at Heathrow Airport from Turkey on 21 June 2022, they were arrested. Later on, Dr Obeta was arrested and charged in court on July 13, 2022, for his role in the conspiracy to steal kidney from a living mankind who was a street hawker from Nigeria. The trial of Dr Obeta, Ike and Beatrice began on February 6, 2023 at the Old Bailey. On Monday, 27 February 2023, the Court heard how Dr Obeta himself had successfully undergone a kidney transplant in the UK in 2021, with a donor travelling from Nigeria who he claimed to be his cousin. Dr Obeta's defence barrister, Sally Howes, KC, asked him if the man from whom he received the kidney was in fact his cousin. Dr Obeta admitted, "No, he's not a blood relative. I wish to apologise for that," and added, "At that point I was really desperate to survive." Asked if he accepted that by identifying him as a cousin was a lie, Dr Obeta said, "I am not proud of that." But for Dr Peter Dupont, Dr Obeta, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife would have deceived the Royal Free Hospital into believing that David Ukpo Nwamini was a maternal cousin to Sonia Ekweremadu who would have received David's kidney contrary to UK's law on organ transplant. In order to understand the seriousness of the crime committed by the accused trio, let's look at the summary of the laws governing organ transplant in the UK.
The UK law on organ transplant is allowed under Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA) enacted by the British Parliament in 1989 and which came into force, with regulations, on 1 April 1990. It prohibited commercial dealings in human organs, whether procured from cadavers (dead humans) or live donors. HOTA makes it an offence for an individual in the United Kingdom to make or receive payments for the supply of or for an offer to supply an organ for transplant into another person, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in the world. The law also attaches criminal consequences for participating in the chain of distribution of human organs under pay-to-play circumstances. Under HOTA law, it is an offence to act as a broker who negotiates the sale of an organ. HOTA focuses on live organ donations and generally makes it an offence either to remove an organ from a living donor or to transplant an organ from a living donor into another person unless the RECIPIENT AND THE DONOR ARE GENETICALLY RELATED. GENETICALLY RELATED INCLUDES BIOLOGICAL PARENTS, CHILDREN, SIBLINGS (HALF-SIBLINGS). NEPHEWS AND NIECES. Under Unrelated Live Transplant Regulatory Authority(ULTRA), unrelated living donation is allowed provided (a) NO PAYMENT HAS BEEN, OR WILL BE, MADE AND (b) THE DONOR'S CONSENT HAS NOT BEEN OBTAINED BY COERCION OR OFFER OF AN INDUCEMENT. It was on the basis of HOTA and ULTRA that the Jurors on March 23, 2023, found Ike Ekweremadu, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu and Dr Obinna Obeta guilty of planning and collaborating to steal the kidney of a Nigerian street hawker, David Ukpo Nwamini, for the purpose of transplanting it into the daughter of Ike and Beatrice Ekweremadu, Sonia, after falsely presenting Nwamini as maternal cousin to Sonia. Sentence was to be delivered on Friday, 5 May 2023. (To be continued).
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