The Nigerian couple arrested in the UK on suspicion of plotting to harvest a child’s organs are one of the west African country’s most prominent politicians and his wife, MailOnline revealed today.
Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a People’s Democratic Party politician for 19 years who was previously Deputy President of the nation’s senate, was arrested in Britain this month with Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55.
Mr. Ekweremadu has been an elected senator in the Abuja-based senate since 2003, after working as a lawyer for many years.
His wife, who is five years his junior, is an academic and doctor, as well as a prominent public personality in Nigeria. They are thought to have four grown children.
They are both charged with conspiracy to arrange or aid another person’s travel for the purpose of exploitation, specifically organ harvesting.
They have been remanded in custody and are due to appear today at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court.
According to the Metropolitan Police, the minor at the center of the suspected conspiracy, who is under the age of 18, is in care. Organ harvesting is the removal of bodily parts for monetary gain and sometimes against the victim’s choice.
Scotland Yard has not disclosed the child’s gender or age, nor the location of the arrests. However, given that the accused are appearing in court in Uxbridge, it is likely that they were detained at nearby Heathrow Airport.
Ekweremadu has been in the United Kingdom for at least a fortnight, having met with members of the Nigerian community in Lincoln around ten days ago.
He tweeted: ‘It was a pleasure and an honour to receive a letter of appointment by the University of Lincoln, UK, as Visiting Professor of Corporate and International Linkages. I also got a highly treasured gift – a copy of the Magna Carta. It was created in 1215, about 807 years ago’.
The investigation was initiated after detectives were alerted to probable violations of modern slavery legislation in May 2022, according to the force.
In 2017, a former Nigerian government official stated that migrants from his nation were being sold into slavery and having their organs removed.
Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Nigerian aviation minister, alleged that 75% of slaves whose organs are taken in North Africa are from his nation.
The Cambridge University-educated lawyer added that the victims have their ‘bodies mutilated’ and are ‘roasted like suya [shish kebabs]’.
He went on: ‘Roasted alive! This is what Libyans do to sub-Saharan Africans who are looking for a transit point to Europe.
‘They sell them into slavery and either murder, mutilate, torture or work them to death.’