The London Metropolitan Police has charged two Nigerians with conspiracy to traffic a child to the United Kingdom in order to harvest organs, the law enforcement said on Thursday.
The accused – a woman and a man – have the same names and ages as Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu.
It is alleged that a 15-year-old Nigerian boy was tricked to travel to the UK for a better life only to be presented to a hospital for one of his kidneys to be harvested and transplanted on Ekweremadu’s daughter who is currently gravely ill and on dialysis.
An interrogation by the surgeon in charge revealed the boy’s true age (of 15 years) which had earlier been declared as 21 in his Nigerian passport.
The police said the charges followed an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime team and gave some details of the accused as follows:
[A] Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55 (10.9.66) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting. [B] Ike Ekweremadu, 60 (12.05.62) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.“The investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential offences under modern slavery legislation in May 2022,” the police said.
The pieces of biographical data provided match the publicly available personal data of Mr Ekweremadu, a serving senator and former Deputy Senate President, and his wife.
Mr Ekweremadu, who is also a UK resident also has his 4 children resident in the UK.
UPDATE
BRANDPOWER can confirm that the Mr and Mrs Ekweremadu have now been detained in custody as their bail application was rejected by the presiding magistrate who considered them a flight risk. They are expected back in court on July 7.
