President Bola Tinubu has dispatched a high-level delegation to London to engage UK authorities on the case of Ike Ekweremadu, former Deputy Senate President, who has been imprisoned in the UK since March 2023.
The delegation includes Yusuf Tuggar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Lateef Fagbemi, Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
The team arrived in London on Monday and met with officials from the UK’s Ministry of Justice.
Alkasim Abdulkadir, spokesperson for Minister Tuggar, said on Tuesday that the presidential delegation’s mission is to consult with UK authorities and explore the possibility of Ekweremadu serving the remainder of his prison sentence in Nigeria.
The Ekweremadus were arrested by the London Metropolitan Police in June 2022 after a man was falsely presented at the Royal Free Hospital as a cousin of their daughter Sonia in a failed attempt to secure an £80,000 organ transplant.
The 21-year-old man, who had been promised work in the UK, reported the incident to the police in May 2022, revealing he had been brought to the country under the pretext of an organ transplant.
In March 2023, a UK court found Ike Ekweremadu guilty of organ trafficking. His wife, Beatrice, and Dr. Obinna Obeta, who was involved in the case, were also convicted. This marked the first conviction of its kind under the UK Modern Slavery Act.
On May 5, 2023, Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison. Beatrice Ekweremadu received a sentence of four years and six months, while Obeta was handed a 10-year term.
Judge Jeremy Johnson ruled that Beatrice should serve half her sentence in custody, with the remainder on licence. However, she was released in January and returned to Nigeria.
