Everybody Taking Advantage Of My Daughter’s Kidney Disease, Says Ekweremadu
Everybody Taking Advantage Of My Daughter’s Kidney Disease, Says Ekweremadu
Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu on resumed trial in London for allegedly plotting to harvest a street trader’s kidney for his sick daughter on Tuesday, told the court that he was being “scammed”.
Naija News House earlier reported that the former Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, daughter Sonia, 25, and a doctor, Obinna Obeta, 50, were being tried in the United Kingdom over an alleged conspiracy to exploit a Nigerian man for his body part.
Lawyers for the four previously told London’s central criminal court, also known as the Old Bailey, that the alleged victim was acting “altruistically,” according to a report by Daily Mail.
The kidney was allegedly intended for Sonia, who remains on dialysis with a renal condition, in return for up to £7,000 ($8,430) and the promise of a new life in Britain for the 21-year-old trader.
Giving evidence in his defence, Ekweremadu was asked about an invoice for £8,000 he received via his brother Diwe from a consultant doctor.
Defence lawyer Martin Hicks asked: “Why not at this stage say we are being scammed Dr Obeta, end of, stop?”
“My daughter´s life was on the line so if we stop we will be putting my daughter´s life in danger. So we just keep moving,” Ekweremadu replied.
“Everybody was obviously taking advantage of my daughter’s ill health,” he added.
Ekweremadu is a senator for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party for Enugu state in southeast Nigeria. He has been held in custody in the UK since his arrest. His wife and daughter are on conditional bail.
In Britain, it is legal to donate a kidney, but not for reward. Prosecutors say regardless of whether the Lagos street trader gave his consent, a crime was committed by the wealthy Nigerians.
The accuser is said to have gone to UK police after finally refusing to consent to the procedure, following preliminary tests at a north London hospital in February 2022.
A consultant doctor at the London hospital said the young man had “limited understanding” of why he was there and was “visibly relieved” on being told the transplant would not go ahead, prosecutor Hugh Davies said.
Ekweremadu told the court on Monday Sonia was doing a master’s degree at Newcastle University when she started experiencing “swollen limbs” in December 2019.
She was later diagnosed with a “kidney issue”, and was said to have withdrawn from her studies after she “collapsed” in class.
Ekweremadu said his daughter’s deteriorating condition was “scary”, adding: “Medicines she was getting (were) not essentially working, so her situation was getting worse.”
