After reportedly bringing a 15-year-old Nigerian boy to the UK under the pretense that they would provide him better opportunities, Mr. Ekweremadu and his wife were detained last week in London with the purpose of harvesting his organs to treat their daughter’s renal condition.
The Nigerian Senate has responded to the arrest and remand in the United Kingdom of former deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, barely 24 hours after it was called out.
Members of the Senate’s committee on foreign affairs will travel to London for a meeting.
Two days from now, the delegation will depart for the United Kingdom.
Furthermore, the Senate instructed its foreign affairs committee to contact the British High Commission in order to “get additional information regarding this matter, particularly with regard to its relevance to the Commission.”
The Senate’s president, Ahmad Lawan, revealed this information after a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.
A little more than an hour into the executive session, Mr. Lawan said that the parliamentarians had been updated on Mr. Ekweremadu’s arrest in London.
Nigerian High Commissioner to the UK, “who has done so well to establish communication with Mr Ekweremadu—who has been able to get his team to be in the court in Uxbridge where he was taken,” he remarked.
“We have been able to provide some consular services, including the employment of attorneys,” he said of the High Commission’s ability to represent Senator Enugu.”
He said that they “have limited opportunities to do beyond what has been done” because the “matter is now in court.” The Senate President remarked.
However, he assured the family of Mr. Ekweremadu and stated a delegation will be sent to meet with the pair.
“Senator Ekweremadu and his wife will be greeted by a delegation in London. There will be a senatorial delegation from the Foreign Affairs Committee departing in two days.
In particular, we call on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to guarantee that they do everything they can to ensure that this happens. According to him, the Nigerian High Commission “has done us proud,” despite the fact that “we may ask for more.”
The London Metropolitan Police arrested the pair last week. They were accused of smuggling a man named David Nwanini so that his kidneys could be harvested.
They were accused of bringing a 15-year-old Nigerian boy to the UK on the pretense of providing him with a better life, but in reality, they wanted to harvest his organs to treat their daughter’s renal illness.
London’s Uxbridge Magistrates Court heard that prosecutors tell the court that Mr Ekweremadu obtained the boy’s passport and claimed that he was 21 years old when in fact he was just 15 years old. He was denied bail.
As a result of this, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has stated that David Nwamini was in fact 21 years old when he was allegedly harvested for his organs.
Senators have been lambasted for their lack of action on the subject during yesterday’s plenary session.
Mr Ekweremadu’s trial in London was brought to the attention of appropriate House committees by Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Director-General Aliyu Aziz.
Nigeria’s Director-General of Immigration, Idris Jere, was also invited to the meeting.
Under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015, the Ekweremadus faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or a fine or both upon summary conviction.
“A person convicted of an offense under Section 1 or 2 is punishable (a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life; or (b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine or both,” read the Act.
