Ekweremadu: Human trafficking, conspiracy and shame of a nation

It is a truism of human existence that we are generally wiser in hindsight. One would expect Sonia Ekweremadu, 25-year-old – docked alongside her parents for conspiracy to harvest an organ, but discharged and still battling kidney disease – to have been helped to arrive where truth obviates the need to be clever by half in her BBC interview. Alas!

The 50:50 flip of hindsight (a preponderating factor in post-hoc reflection for souls on the borderlines of conscience, contrition and penance) triumphed, prevailing over honesty or silence, and further mis-casting the Ekweremadus for observers of their human trafficking with intent to exploit and harvest organ saga. Inadvertently, she and her handlers denied the family closure and opened it anew to scrutiny and discourse, which may not avail it the equanimity family members need and must crave at this time, despite their ordeal.

Last week saw the sentencing of Senator (Dr.) Chief Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice 56 and a kidney broker, Dr. Obinna Obeta, 51, who were convicted on March 23, 2023 after a seven-week jury trial at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, to cumulative 24 years imprisonment for human trafficking and organ harvest conspiracy in contravention of the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The victim, 21-year-old David Ukpo Nwamini, who was to have donated his kidney to Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia, hawked phone accessories on Lagos streets before he was trafficked to London. From court records, between August 1, 2021, and May 5, 2022, Ekweremadu, a lawyer, who was conscious of his actions, and a former federal lawmaker who was instrumental to introducing legislation that criminalised his unlawful conduct in Nigeria, conspired with his wife and brokered with Obeta to procure a donor and facilitate his travel to London, UK, with aim to exploit him and harvest his organ. His defence-in-chief, as testified to the court, was that he did what “was expedient” to save his daughter’s life.

Emeka Ugunye of Due Process Advocates (DPA) provided some details of what transpired behind the scene. According to him, in the typical style of a big shot, who did not want to soil his hands and sought to shield himself from dirty details of his wrongdoing, Ekweremadu parted with N4.5 million (ostensibly N1m for Obeta and N3.5m for payment by Obeta to the would-be donor, whose name he hardly remembered and severally called “that guy” in WhatsApp chats with Obeta). He neither dealt directly with nor discussed money with David. He distanced himself from the transaction. Or so he thought.

Consequently, Obeta gave David N270,000 plus the fake currency of promised job and schooling in the UK and smiled to his bank with the remaining N4.23 million. Ekweremadu was none the wiser. He believed that David got N3.5 million. It resembled the ‘olè gbée, olè gbàá’ case where a thief snatched a robber’s loot. What became the seed of nemesis and fall from grace for once-powerful Ekweremadu, former Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, now convict, and his accomplices, was sown at the London hospital where David’s kidney was to have been harvested.

According to prosecution witness, Dr. David DuPont, it is routine pre-surgical clinical assessment for a potential donor to be interviewed, to ascertain that he is neither being “forced or under duress or coerced nor induced” to donate his organ. During a meeting at the clinic in February 2022, DuPont testified, David “was very subdued” and “didn’t seem to understand what he had signed for.” For clarity, when asked if he knew he was to donate his kidney, David replied that he had no money to donate.

When medics explained that it was his kidney that was needed, not money, he asked, “What is kidney?” The doctors initially thought it was due to his poor English but eventually understood that he neither knew what a kidney (the organ he was to donate) was, nor was informed of health risks to himself of giving it up.

This threw up red flags, and raised concerns that constituted an insurmountable hurdle when put forward to the Human Tissue Authority (the regulator of organ donation from living people) for approval. It was concluded that medical best practice and applicable law requirements for organ harvest – that the procedure and associated health risks be clearly explained to the intending donor – were not met. His consent was deemed uninformed. The procedure was not approved.

The young man was relieved. But not for long. A physician may cure headaches and fever, scurvy, measles, etc. A nephrologist can, like in the extant case, harvest and transplant a kidney to cure FSGS nephrotic syndrome. But no doctor on earth can cure adamancy. When a soul is adamant to self-destruct, no procedure or medication may cure the itch.

Not knowing that the ‘head’ or spirit of David, was ‘hard’ in the Yoruba manner of speaking on a soul that may not be cheated, Ekweremadu & Co. introduced a sinister dimension. They procured a consultant nephrologist to examine David where he was being kept to determine if his kidney was useful for Sonia regardless of the Human Tissue Authority’s disapproval.

Satisfied of suitability of his kidney, Ekweremadu and Obeta arranged to return him to Nigeria. David feared it was to carry out the transplant in Nigeria where, with his position and power, Ekweremadu could do anything without hindrance. By this time, he was informed of the ramifications of kidney loss, hitherto hidden from him, and did not consent to be a donor. So he was more or less imprisoned. His passport taken from him, his existence controlled and his movements monitored and restricted.

The trauma of captivity, concern that his kidney would be forcefully removed and fear for his wellbeing and life fertilised the seed of Ekweremadus’ brewing trouble. A note of caution is apposite here, especially for folks who have been misled into erroneously believing that David took advantage of Ekweremadu, members of the elite who routinely act like him and are hurting at the coming to grief of one of their own, and their wannabes and Stockholm Syndrome-afflicted abettors and vuvuzelas among the general public.

It is instructive that after the conviction of Ekweremadu and accomplices, the court considered that a substantial compensation order would be appropriate in light of David’s travails. The court petitioned the Crown to determine David’s disposition. A police officer carefully explained the meaning, purpose, and reason for compensation to him. Twice, he declined. His refusal was blatant and unequivocal on both occasions, in spite of the financial benefits he stood to gain.

He was said to have insisted that he wanted no compensation or anything from “those bad people.” He wanted to put them and the affair behind him and start his life afresh. The police reported that he spoke with moral conviction. In the circumstances, the court waived compensation.

Let those calling David names say if, in a similar situation, they would pass, like he did, on substantial monetary compensation by the court under Crown protection from the ex-senators stash of more than GBP 400,000 (nearly NGN 250 million at CBN rates) in his UK Bank account.

Suffice to say, everything in the process leading to Ekweremadu’s sentencing last week, from investigations to arrests, charges, trial, and conviction was handled competently, efficiently and professionally by the relevant UK authorities. Much better than could have been said were the events to have occurred in Nigeria. The sentences were the mildest fitting the crime and evidence.

Objective analysis cannot but show that the notion of David cheating the ex-senator is farthest from truth. David is the victim who was grossly manipulated by Dr. Obeta working for Ekweremadu. The deceitful targeting of his young age, desperation and poverty, and isolation from his immediate family, and luring him into foreign travel on false promises with intent to exploit is what constituted human trafficking.

David was led by Obeta to see the deal as a ticket to jápa, emigrate from Nigeria, and a total package – N270,000, travel, job and schooling assistance in the UK. That he accepted is not far-fetched. Few Nigerian youths in his shoes today will reject such an offer, especially when packaged deceptively as done by Obeta. Many other Nigerians are tithing and offering, sowing and seeding, and fasting and praying to jápa this very moment. That is how desperate the people have been rendered by the leadership the likes of Ekweremadu (who has been a senator since 2003 when David was just a year old) have provided since 1999.

Those asking why he doesn’t want to return to Nigeria if he was truly trafficked and blaming him for seeking asylum missed the point. If you were presented with a ‘japa’ ticket and you accepted, you seek a better life abroad.’ If you arrived abroad to discover that you were trafficked for potentially fatal organ harvesting, returning home would not be your #1 priority, but freedom from your traffickers, and safety.

You will consider your options. As you, on the one hand, give testimony over escaping Nigeria, you will explore ways and means to remain abroad. But if, on the other hand, you are apprehensive for your safety and future, you will want to free yourself of the yoke of your human traffickers and organ hunters.

Where would a 21-year-old nobody, poor and ignorant enough to ‘jápa’ purportedly to donate organ be safer from the wrath of a thwarted politician of Ekweremadu’s status and power? UK or Nigeria? That is one way to view his asylum application. Initially, he didn’t factor potentially lifelong health issues and continuing medical expenses post-organ donation (which was not disclosed or explained to him by Ekweremadu or Obeta). In other words, he was in no position to correctly answer pre-surgery interview questions and so bungled them innocently.

His reckoning would be that Ekweremadu & Co caused the discrepancy. And that even though the procedure hadn’t gone through, he fulfilled his part of the deal. Plus, he expected to be provided a job and helped to start school in London as he was promised before leaving Nigeria. Being forced to return to Nigeria is not in the bargain. Plus, he now sees them as bad people for withholding details of the organ donation and related risks from him.

His failed expectations for the trip and impending forced return to Nigeria for kidney removal, which he now understands can kill him in the long run made him run away from the house where he was being kept on May 3, 2022, the eve of his departure from the UK. After roaming London hungry for two days and seeing no way out of his predicament, he turned himself into police, creating conditions for Ekweremadu’s trouble to germinate and shoot, leading to the arrest of the ex-senator, his wife, and organ donor broker.

Through debriefing, the police established that he was paid N270,000, and that crime(s), to wit, trafficking and conspiracy to harvest organ had been committed. By his choice of indirect dealing with David, Ekweremadu blindsided himself to Obeta’s duplicity and greed. His false claim of “cousin” regarding David’s relationship with his daughter, Sonia, in the visa sponsorship document he signed and the corrupt relationship he cultivated with staff of a UK entity to subvert transplant regulatory approval process established his criminal culpability and proved decisive for his conviction. He admitted to lying in court and apologised, but the damage was done.

The foregoing gist of Ekweremadu’s conviction and video of the interview granted to BBC by his daughter, Sonia, who is at the beneficial centre of the human trafficking and organ harvesting conspiracy, is the background for this intervention. Early in the video, which left more questions than answers, she claimed that a history of kidney problems in her father’s family, which affected her alone, ruled her father and siblings out as donors. If true, it perhaps explains why he looked outside his nuclear family for potential donors in the poverty-deranged David.

Beatrice Ekweremadu

But what of Mrs. Ekweremadu? Since her natal family was not ruled out by congenital kidney conditions, why not seek a donor there to keep the proposed organ harvest in-house? Would it not have been cheaper, easier and hassle-free to procure a Good Samaritan from her extended family for the proposed organ harvest? Obviously, such a family donor could be truly called cousin, and, if poverty-stricken and needy to be paid like David, could be explained away, making the outed artifice/lie that led to trouble unnecessary.

To a keen watcher, the takeaways from the video are many. Suffice to say that from about 2.0 minutes of the timeline, she started to evade probe into her involvement and to deny knowledge of the conspiracies; perhaps to avoid legal liability. At precisely 2.43 minutes, asked if she knew that the donor was portrayed as her cousin as mentioned in court, a voice coached her from the background not to answer. So she declined the question. From then onwards, it became apparent that she was not speaking from the heart but being surreptitiously tele-guided.

“To an extent…,” “…but not really.” “…I didn’t really know anything leading on to it,” etc, she answered to follow-up questions on nearly all aspects of her knowledge of the subject. Meanwhile, she had disclosed, perhaps inadvertently, in explaining her picture with David that she knew he arrived in the UK with her uncle and went with her mother to thank him, and took pictures “for memories.”

If she had “not really” known he was there for organ harvesting, what did she believe he was in the UK for and for what was she thankful to him? Could his kidney be donated to her without first being harvested during his trip to London? So many questions. And inconsistencies. Also, the video might have edited out her other remarks. Her later words, “I wish him the best,” while suggesting goodwill/no grudges despite the outcome for her family belied the preceding “I don’t feel anything towards him,” a sentiment, which is not only incongruous but also improbable in the circumstances.

In all, she admitted only to guilt for being the cause of her family’s troubles and expressed sympathy for her parents. The impression was created that she was not forthright on her involvement or sympathetic to her ill-fated donor.

The question then arises, why did she grant the interview? To tell her side of the story? To curry sympathy? To appeal for another donor? Whatever be the aim, her denials and explanations are unconvincing and portray non-innocence. It comes across as unsuccessful PR and betrayed no remorse and a feeling of entitlement to the good life at the expense of downtrodden compatriots associated with her father’s class and their brood and that defines the Nigerian elite, which exploits and leaves hapless victims of their prebendal politics and parasitic lifestyles with the short end of the stick.

Since news of the sentencing and video of the BBC interview outed, a substantial section of the Nigerian commentariat has been incensed and unforgiving in the discourse that has attended the saga. But instead of cursing them as many have, the Ekweremadus should be wished the best, perhaps in like measure of Sonia’s own best wishes in the video for the poor but brave young man who escaped with his organ and life from her family’s ‘expedient’ bid to keep her alive. This would be in line with the scripture on loving neighbours as self.

Obviously, not everyone can altruistically donate a kidney or other vital organ, especially to a non-family member or loved one or even support anyone he/she cares about to do so. Invariably, not everyone can sympathise with Sonia and her family. But as the saying goes, ‘ko ni buru buru ko ma k’enì kan mó ni.’ No matter how bad one’s case may be, one will still find sympathisers.

Indeed, one such sympathiser attempted, albeit stealthily but unsuccessfully last weekend, to suppress reportage and commentary on the matter on a forum, positing, “Let the man appeal the judgment or serve his sentence in peace. His family has gone through a lot already…” But this writer knows others on the forum and elsewhere that disagree with him, with many counters not least of which is that had Ekweremadu cared about peace for the family of his victim, he might have restricted his search for kidney donor for his daughter within his or wife’s family and not allow it to become a matter of public opprobrium. And that in contriving to lure a poor compatriot with ‘jápa’ and fake promises, trafficking him abroad and attempting illicit organ harvest, he forfeited peace for his family.

Some have argued that had the likes of Ekweremadu been responsible leaders, he might have been spared his misfortune as there would be sufficient medical facilities in-country to treat his daughter or manage her condition. And that ordinary Nigerians like David Nwamiri would not have been so desperately poor as to blindly agree to the preposterous deal Obeta offered as Ekweremadu’s rogue agent.

The good news, however, is that no one has stopped anyone else who feels sufficiently sympathetic to Ekweremadu from volunteering him/herself for trafficking and organ harvesting for transplant to Sonia in demonstration of his/her sympathy. As for Nigeria’s political leaders appeals to UK authorities for clemency on Ekweremadu’s behalf, it may be viewed as a class act in self-preservation, aimed at protecting one of their own. To paraphrase the popular saying, ‘gbogbo won l’olè, eni t’ílè ká mó ni bàráwò,’ they are all the same, Ekweremadu is tagged thief only because he was caught in the act.

Buhari and Tinubu

From outgoing President Buhari to President-elect Tinubu to lesser leaders, it’s the same narrative of medical opacity and tourism at the nation’s expense. Yet, despite the deplorable healthcare situation in Nigeria, there are elite facilities that can deal with most of the conditions for which the rich go abroad, including organ transplants. Then the question arises as to why they shroud their health in so much secrecy. We are told that leaders don’t want people to know their medical history and status. Fear of media leaks, shame, and social stigma is said to be the beginning of health status wisdom and so politicians and other wealthy people travel out in droves purportedly to stop gossip. Nonsensical.

Perhaps it is time for the likes of Ike Ekweremadu that are yet to be caught to pass laws, in their own self-interests, to stop public servants from foreign medical treatment except where facilities don’t exist locally, This will avert repeat Ekweremadu debacles in London or elsewhere abroad. Perhaps this is how to finally put an end to medical tourism and its adverse effects on healthcare system development, on the economy and on national pride.

Perhaps it is how to start to reverse the brain drain that continues to deplete talent in the health sector and rob the nation of its best in virtually all professional areas. This has been said and repeated ad nauseam, but who, amongst Nigerian leaders, is listening or ready to lead by example and save the nation from shame? The answer, as they say, is blowing in the wind.

Vice President Osinbajo, however, made an exception to the elite malaise when he subjected himself to surgery and treatment in a Lagos hospital recently. Deservedly, he got the praise and answered prayers of multitudes of his countrymen for survival and quick recovery. God bless him. Ultimately, the Ekweremadu case should serve as a cautionary tale to a locust elite who, as noted by Dr. Adeyemo Adetogun, believe they can use money, position and power “to oppress the poor and less fortunate that nemesis, through the long arm of the law can and will catch up with them” someday. God bless Nigeria.
• Tunji Suleiman, entrepreneur and public affairs analyst, wrote from Ilorin.