Following their conviction for organ trafficking under the Modern Slavery Act, former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice will be sentenced on May 5.
The jury while revealing its decision on Thursday stated that Ekweremadu conspired to bring a 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney.
The young man was offered a reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease made her drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University.
The lawmaker's daughter, Sonia, was, however, cleared by the court.
Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice
The prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, told the UK court that Ekweremadu's behaviour showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”.
According to Davies, the embattled Nigerian who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.
“What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal.
“It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter.
“Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty”, he added.
In his defence, Ekweremadu told the court that he was the victim of a scam.
The sentencing will be passed by Justice Jeremy Johnson on the aforementioned date.
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