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Ike Ekweremadu: The Long Road to Prison

Published

12 months ago

May 6, 2023

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

On face value, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who once served as the Deputy Senate President of the Nigerian eight senate, and one time Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, would be 70 years in the next nine years when he would be expected to be released from prison.

This is because the former lawmaker bagged a nine years, six months jail term after he was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, United Kingdom (UK) for organ trafficking. His wife, Beatrice, did not escape the long arm of the law, as she got six years imprisonment.

It would be recalled that the long walk of the senator to London prison began on June 23, 2022, when the London Metropolitan Police announced that it has arrested Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, for conspiring to bring an alleged 15-year-old boy to the UK for organ harvesting. The kidney donor, one David Nwamini’s travel was said to have been arranged between August 1, 2021, and May 5, 2022, with a view to exploitation, punishable under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The couple were charged the same day at the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court where they pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody and the trial adjourned till July 7. What they did not, nor any of their well wishers understood was that a long walk with the legal system, culminating in inglorious incarceration, has just begun.

After a lot of back and forth, and several adjournments, the trial resumed proper on February 3 2023 as the senator and his legal team could not stop influence his daughter’s application to not stand trial with him and her mother for the said “conspiracy to harvest organ”. The charges was thrown out by Justice Jeremiah Johnson.

With the senator sitting hapless in detention, and following proceedings via video link, his daughter, Sonia, 25, was in the dock with her mother, listening to the judge ruled declare that she was not unfit to stand a “criminal trial lasting seven weeks” against the argument of her defence barrister, Femi Oni.

After tabling the application for “stay of proceedings” on the basis that “she’s unfit” medically and psychologically due to her ongoing thrice a week dialysis, both sides of the bench led their expert witnesses in testimonies via video link, beginning with the Manchester-based professor that Oni had lined up.

After being sworn in, the defence asked him: “Did you have an opportunity to get consultation with her before writing his report”, he replied with a “yes.” Asked if he has a report on “what she’s suffering from?” the professor told the court that “she’s developed from a young age, a kidney condition “that led to a gradual dysfunction and consequently, “her life is dependent on dialysis treatment until she has a kidney transplant.”

Led in further testimony, he told the court the treatment has placed a psychological, mental and medical burden on her as it does on other dialysis patients. The professor also relied on the report of a consultant psychiatrist.

Davies, on his part, had Dr Andrews as his expert witness. Though he admitted having not had any direct consultation with Sonia, but did say if the court’s schedule of sitting times was moved to afternoons to accommodate her treatment days, that she’s capable of standing trial. Andrew told the court in his testimony that, ‘the residual symptoms of dialysis does not make it impossible to attend trial.”

After listening to the barristers and their expert witnesses, including their reports, and acknowledging that the treatment takes its toll on her and that she has even had to withdraw from her Masters degree programme after her diagnosis, the judge said it is not confirmed that her recovery or clinical care could suffer if she were to stand trial. He then ruled that accordingly, “the application is dismissed.”

A week later, a Royal Free Hospital dialysis expert who carried out a routine pre-surgical assessment for the kidney donor told the court that he had concerns about his suitability and that he didn’t seem to know the implications of what he had signed up for.

Prosecution witness, Dr David DuPont, said as part of normal clinical practice of interviewing potential donors, so as to be certain they were not being “forced or under duress or coerced nor induced to donate their organ”, he asked Nwamini these and other questions during a face-to-face meeting at the clinic last year February.

Despite the defence put up by Ekweremadu, 60; his wife, Beatrice, 56; and Obeta, 51, the court convicted them for organ trafficking on Thursday, March 23, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.

However, the court cleared the lawmaker’s daughter, Sonia. The jury ruled that Ekweremadu, his wife and their doctor criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney and reserved their sentencing till yesterday when the trio received sentences with Dr. Obeta getting the highest of 10 years.

However, both the Senator and his wife got some discounts and will not serve the entire duration of their terms due to mitigating circumstances that Johnson factored into his judgment. While the senator will serve two thirds of his term, his wife’s term was reduced to four years and six months after factoring in the discounts.

“It’s going to be two thirds” Gary Owen, one of the Senator’s barristers told The Guardian outside the Court after the judgment when asked to clarify the implication of the discount.

On her part, the wife would serve half of her term. So, while the Senator will do about six years, he won’t stay locked up for that much as he’s already been in custody since June 21, 2023, when he was arrested with the wife at Heathrow Airport. She too will spend less than three years, as the time already spent in custody will be deducted.

Additional information from The Guardian.

Headline

Breaking: Wike Plans to Attend Thursday’s PDP NEC Meeting

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

The immediate past Governor of Rivers State, and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, may have concluded plans to attend the much advertised National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), billed to hold on Thursday, in Abuja.

Impeccable source, who is in the know, told The Boss that the minister, whose membership of the PDP is yet to be revoked even as he frolicks with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and serving in the President Bola Tinubu government as a minister.

The Source told The Boss that Wike’s impending presence at the NECeeting on Thursday is not unconnected with plans, already hatched with some governors, to weaken the opposition PDP.

“Yes, we have on good authority that FCT minister, Wike is planning to attend the NEC meeting tomorrow all in a bid to weaken the fabrics of the PDP, and pave the way for the continuation of the Tinubu administration come 2027, and by extension, relapse Nigeria to a full blown one party state.

“From every indication, Wike and his co-travellers, are bent on unleashing the same crisis ravaging the third force, Labour Party, and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Nigerian National People’s Party (NNPP) on the PDP for the APC to remain the only political party in the country, and ensure that Tinubu has no challenger, come 2027,” the Source said.

It would be recalled that Wike has boasted over and again that there’s no opposition against Tinubu’s re-emergence in 2027, and that they have made sure of that. He has been compensated with the Ministerial job after he withdrew support for his party, and supported the APC and Tinubu to emerge as national government.

The Source further revealed that in the attempt to actualize the intended one party state, a lot of funding is ongoing to ensure that concerned stakeholders are ‘settled’ handsomely.

Wike, prior, during and after the 2023 general elections, has been floating in between the two major political parties; the APC and the PDP. While he claim to still be a member of the PDP, he is functioning as a minister in an APC government, mocking the inability of his party to discipline him.

Political stakeholders have concluded that the outcome of Thursday’s PDP NEC meeting will determine the path Nigeria’s political trajectory will take, and that it may portend the end of multi-party system and political democracy if Wike succeeds in his plan.

Headline

Bribery, Corruption: APC Suspends National Chairman, Ganduje

Published

5 days ago

April 15, 2024

Eric

The All Progressives Congress ward in Ganduje, Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area, has suspended the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje.

The party ward legal adviser, Halliru Gwanzo, announced the suspension while addressing newsmen in Kano State on Monday.

Gwanzo cited allegations of bribery against Ganduje levelled by the Kano State Government as the reason for the suspension.

“We decided to suspend Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje from the party due to the seriousness of the allegations against him,” Gwanzo said.

Meanwhile, efforts to contact the Chief Press Secretary to the APC National Chairman, Mr Edwin Olufo, failed as his mobile phone was unreachable.

Headline

Akpabio Commits to Collaboration with Tinubu, Governor Umo Eno

Published

1 week ago

April 12, 2024

Admin

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has stated his commitment to working closely with Nigeria’s President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Governor Umo Eno to ensure the delivery of democratic benefits to the people of Akwa Ibom State.

Akpabio stated this in his country home, Ukana, Essien Udim Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom, while briefing his constituents on the journey so far as their representative in the red chamber.

He assured the people of Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District of his commitment to their welfare in appreciation of their total support for him, President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in last year’s election.

The Highpoint of the constituency briefing was the distribution of over 10,000 bags of rice and other essentials for his constituents from the wards, to the local governments.

A statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Jackson Udom, quoted Akpabio as saying, “I am here once again, to thank you for standing by me, our President and the party, before, during and even after last year’s elections. I have come to say thank you and also bring Renewed Hope to you all.

“As the President is doing his own, the Senate President is also doing his bit and being complemented by the state governor, Akwa Ibom would be the better for it. We have finished elections and politics, we are now into governance. The governor of the state must touch you, because he is the governor of all the people in the state irrespective of political affiliation.

” As I am touching you now from the political angle, I will also touch the state without any political party affiliation. Most of the projects we are putting in place would be used by people resident in the state. Relax, things are getting better.”

The former Governor of the state, assured his constituents that his current position as the Senate President would be used for the development of the state in collaboration with the President and the Akwa Ibom State Governor.

Hear him: This Senate President is not the one that would be fighting the state government. I will collaborate with , I will collaborate with , to make the state better for us all. We cannot be out of government for a long time. You have to go to a government that carries you along”

Akpabio promised to work for his constituents and Nigeria with all his strength, noting that, “as the President of the Senate, I am for the Southern region and the entire country. I may not come here regularly to tell you what I have been doing for you, but you will be feeling the impact on way or the other. Our unemployed youths would be gainfully employed. I will construct a mini stadium in all the local governments in the district, for our youths to develop their sporting potentials. ”