The UK government has rejected a request by Nigeria to deport a former senior Nigerian politician convicted of organ trafficking.
Ike Ekweremadu, 63, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate and ally of the former president Goodluck Jonathan, is serving a sentence of nine years and eight months after being found guilty in 2023 of conspiring to exploit a man for his kidney.
Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and a co-conspirator, Dr Obinna Obeta, trafficked a young man to London with a view to harvesting his kidney, which they planned to transplant to Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia in a private unit of an NHS hospital.
It was the first conviction for organ trafficking under the Modern Slavery Act.
Last week, a Nigerian government delegation, led by the foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, met officials at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to discuss Ekweremadu’s case. The delegation requested his deportation so he could serve his remaining sentence in Nigeria.
A source at the MoJ has confirmed the request was rejected. It is understood the UK government was concerned that Nigeria could offer no guarantees that Ekweremadu would continue his prison sentence after being deported.
A government spokesperson said it could not comment on individual prisoners. They added: “Any prisoner transfer is at our discretion following a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice.”
A source said: “The UK will not tolerate modern slavery and any offender will face the full force of UK law.”
Beatrice Ekweremadu, who was sentenced to four years and six months, with half spent in custody, was released earlier this year and has since returned to Nigeria.
In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson said all three conspirators played a part in a “despicable trade”. He said: “The harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery. It treats human beings and their bodies as commodities to be bought and sold.”
The judge described Ekweremadu as the “driving force” behind the organ-trafficking plot, and said his conviction represented “a very substantial fall from grace”.
