Nigerian Senator and Wife Guilty of Trafficking Man to UK to Harvest His Organs

An influential Nigerian senator, his wife and a doctor have been found guilty of organ trafficking in the UK. 

Ike Ekweremadu and Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu were arrested in June of last year and charged with “conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.” 

The organ was for their daughter, Sonia, 25, who was found not guilty after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey. 

The court had heard how the family had conspired to bring a 21-year-old man from Lagos to the UK and offer him money in an illegal exchange for his kidney. 

Dr Obinna Obeta was paid a fee of 1 million naira (£1,800) to find a suitable donor for Sonia, who was studying at Newcastle University, in the north of England.

Ekeremadu served in the Senate as a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), currently Nigeria’s main opposition party. He is a political ally of Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's former president, and from 2007-2019 he served as the Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate.

In his visa application for the donor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, Ekweremadu, a trained lawyer, falsely claimed the man was Sonia’s cousin. It wasn’t until the donor appeared at the Royal Free hospital in London that medical staff became suspicious of the circumstances. 

During the trial, prosecutors claimed the family treated the man as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward,” in a show of “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy.”

The verdict is the first of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act. The Ekweremadus will be sentenced at a later date.