The United Kingdom government has formally turned down the Nigerian government’s request to transfer former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, to Nigeria to complete his prison sentence.
Ekweremadu is currently serving a nine-year, eight-month jail term in the UK after his 2023 conviction for conspiring to traffic a young man’s kidney for transplant. The conviction, delivered after a widely publicized trial, marked one of the most significant organ-trafficking cases involving a prominent Nigerian politician.
According to UK Ministry of Justice sources, the British government declined Nigeria’s request over concerns that the country could not guarantee Ekweremadu would continue serving his sentence if repatriated.
A spokesperson for the UK government, while refusing to comment specifically on Ekweremadu’s case, noted that all prisoner-transfer decisions are based on “a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice.” Another official stressed that the UK will not tolerate modern slavery, adding that offenders must face the full weight of the law.
The Nigerian delegation, led by Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, had met UK officials last week to push for Ekweremadu’s transfer. However, the British authorities concluded that the conditions for such a transfer were not met.
Ekweremadu’s wife, Beatrice Ekweremadu, who received a four-year, six-month sentence in the same case, has since been released and returned to Nigeria.
During sentencing, Justice Jeremy Johnson described the conspiracy as a “despicable trade”, emphasizing that harvesting organs treats human beings as commodities. He noted that Ekweremadu acted as the “driving force” behind the plot — a development he said represented a significant fall from grace for the once-influential lawmaker.
The case drew global attention after investigators revealed that the young Nigerian man at the center of the plot had been falsely presented as a relative who had voluntarily agreed to donate a kidney.
With the UK’s decision, Senator Ekweremadu will continue to serve his full sentence in a British prison, shutting down any immediate hopes of returning to Nigeria under a prisoners-transfer agreement.
Leave a Reply