Senate remains silent on alleged organ harvesting; Ekweremadu’s horror

Ike Ekweremadu, the former vice president of the senate, and his recent arrest and detention in the UK received no mention at the Senate plenary on Tuesday.

The Enugu West senator and his wife, Beatrice, were both taken into custody by the London Metropolitan Police last week.

The Ekweremadus were charged by the police for allegedly trafficking David Nwanini with the intention of obtaining his kidney.

According to the charges, the legislator transported a 15-year-old Nigerian boy to the UK under the pretense that he would have a better life there but in reality, they wanted to use his organs to treat their daughter’s renal illness.

The prosecution reportedly told the court that Mr. Ekweremadu obtained a passport for the boy and claimed he was 21 years old only to discover that he was 15 years old. The couple was tried at the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in London and were denied bail.

However, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has stated that David Nwamini, the suspected victim of organ harvesting, was 21 years old, defying the London prosecutors’ assertions.

The National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) documents that Mr. Nwamini presented, according to the Service, listed his birthdate as October 12, 2000.

Senate remains silent as lawmakers summon government officials
Nigerians anticipated that the Senate would consider the matter as a matter of national importance in the meantime.

Expectations of importance at the plenary were crushed when no one brought it up.

The senator from his home state would often bring up the issue and ask for support for “one of their own,” but this time it was the other way around.

The two senators from Enugu, Chukwuka Utazi and Chimaroke Nnamani, who are both PDP members like Mr. Ekweremadu, attended plenary and participated in discussions about other subjects that were discussed on the Senate floor.

When Mr. Nnamani was the governor of the state, Mr. Ekweremadu, 60, served as Chief of Staff and then Secretary to the Enugu State Government.

Later, in 2003, he was elected to the Senate, where he spent 12 years as deputy senate president.

It is unclear whether the Senate’s silence was decided upon unanimously before to Tuesday’s proceedings.

Reps enter.
But while the upper chamber chose to remain silent regarding Mr. Ekweremadu’s ordeal, their House of Representatives counterparts not only deliberated on it but also invited Geoffrey Onyeama, the minister of foreign affairs, and Aliyu Aziz, the director-general of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), to appear and brief the relevant committees of the House on the ongoing trial in London.

Additionally scheduled to appear before the committees is Idris Jere, Director-General of the Nigerian Immigration Services (NIS).

The invites were in response to a motion that Abdulahi Abdulkadir sponsored (APC, Bauchi).

The Ekweremadus could receive a maximum of 12 years in prison or life if found guilty.

According to the 2015 Modern Slavery Act of the United Kingdom, the Ekweremadus could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison, 12 months in jail, a fine, or both upon summary conviction.

“A person convicted of an offence under Section 1 or 2 is liable (a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life; (b)on conviction on summary judgment;” the law stated.