…on charges of human trafficking

…ECOWAS Commission, IHRC, Senate, Reps lend voice

Please for clemency have been overflowing, as London’s Old Bailey Court gets set Friday, to sentence former Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, following a conviction in March .

All three were found guilty before the court, of trafficking a man to Britain to harvest one of his kidneys.

Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice planned to give the organ to their daughter who has a kidney disease.

The victim – a 21-year old street trader from Lagos – was offered $8,000 (£6,340) and promised a better life in Britain, but only realised what was going on when he met doctors in hospital, it said.

The Ekweremadus, along with a medic who helped them, are the first people convicted of organ trafficking under Britain’s modern slavery laws.

The maximum sentence they could face is life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has appealed to the Government of the United Kingdom for leniency in the sentencing.

IHRC’s Ambassador at Large and Head of Diplomatic Mission to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, H.E. Ambassador (Dr.) Duru Hezekiah, asserted on Wednesday at his office in Abuja, Nigeria, that Senator Ike Ekweremadu is a Patriotic Nigerian, who has served the Nigerian Senate three consecutive times since 2003.

Duru further ascribed that Senator Ike Ekweremadu acted on the purview of parental instincts to save his daughter and not for commercial purposes, as well, maybe ignorance of the law of the United Kingdom, adding that a Distinguished Personality and lawmaker of that repute wouldn’t involve himself in the such abominable act.

Nigeria’s House of Representatives has also written to the United Kingdom government, especially the parliament, asking it to intervene in the case.

Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, addressed the British Crown at the plenary on Tuesday, demanding that the UK Criminal Court should consider the plea of the lawmakers.

The House also asked the Federal Government to take diplomatic steps to “intervene” in the trial of the lawmaker.

Furthermore, the Nigerian Senate, at plenary on Wednesday, May 3, appealed to the court to spare Ekweremadu, noting that the lawmaker was ignorant of the law, while seeking a kidney donor for his ailing daughter.

Another plea came from the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) Parliament which appealed to the United Kingdom authorities to grant Senator Ike Ekweremadu clemency.

In a letter to the Chief Clerk, Central Criminal Court Old Bailey, London,the Speaker of the ECOWAS parliament, Dr. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, urged the United Kingdom Court to temper justice with mercy.

Mohamed said though the ECOWAS frowns at the crime for which Ekweremadu had been convicted, it believes that lessons had been learnt.

Mohamed averred that Ekweremadu was known for his various interventions on issues affecting the wellbeing of the citizens.

In a separate plea, former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Buhari Bala, said Ekweremadu had positively touched the lives of many Nigerians across the length and breadth of the country.

Bala added that he expected more sympathy and positive actions on Ekwemaradu’s issue, because he got involved in the matter fighting to save the life of his daughter, an action every proud and responsible parent would do.

The chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa has likewise made a plea to the UK government to show leniency to the former Nigeria Deputy Senate President.

Dabiri-Erewa, in an official statement on Wednesday signed by the NIDCOM spokesperson, Abdur-Rahman Balogun joined others in pleading with the UK government to temper justice with mercy as regards Ekweremadu.

She pleaded with the court to show compassion and sympathy in the case.