President Bola Tinubu has reportedly dispatched a high-level delegation to the United Kingdom to engage officials of the UK Ministry of Justice regarding the case of Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who remains in custody over an organ-harvesting conviction.
The delegation includes the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi (SAN).
The officials were received at the Nigerian High Commission in London by Ambassador Mohammed Maidugu, the Acting High Commissioner to the UK, before proceeding to their meeting with the British Ministry of Justice.
Ekweremadu has been in detention in the UK since March 2023, after he and his wife, Beatrice, were arrested by the London Metropolitan Police for allegedly trafficking a young Nigerian man, David Nwanini, for the purpose of harvesting his kidney.
In May 2023, a London court found Ekweremadu, his wife, and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, guilty of conspiring to facilitate the travel of a 21-year-old from Lagos to the UK to exploit him for a kidney transplant intended for their ailing daughter, Sonia.
Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison, while Beatrice received four years and six months, and Dr. Obeta ten years.
Beatrice Ekweremadu was released in January 2025 and has since returned to Nigeria, but her husband remains incarcerated in the UK.
