By Emmanuel Nduka Obisue
The United Kingdom Government has rejected the Nigerian government’s appeal to transfer former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu from a British prison back to Nigeria to serve out his sentence.
Ekweremadu is currently serving a nine-year, eight-month sentence in the UK after being convicted in 2023 on charges related to organ trafficking.
Earlier this month, President Bola Tinubu dispatched a high-powered delegation to London to make the case for Ekweremadu’s return. The team included Yusuf Tuggar, the Foreign Affairs Minister, and Lateef Fagbemi, Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
According to sources at the UK Ministry of Justice, the request was denied because British officials were not convinced Nigeria could guarantee that Ekweremadu would remain in custody and complete his sentence. A UK official reportedly said, “Any prisoner transfer is at our discretion following a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice. The UK will not tolerate modern slavery and any offender will face the full force of UK law”.
In June 2022, he, his wife Beatrice, and medical practitioner Dr. Obinna Obeta were arrested in London after authorities uncovered a scheme in which a 21-year-old Nigerian man was brought to the UK under false pretenses to donate a kidney. They were later convicted under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act for conspiring to exploit him.
In May 2023, Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months; Beatrice got four and a half years, and Obeta received ten years. His wife, Beatrice, has since been released and returned to Nigeria in early 2025.
With the UK’s refusal, Ekweremadu will remain imprisoned in the UK for the remainder of his sentence.
