The United Kingdom has refused Nigeria’s request to allow former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu to finish his prison term on Nigerian soil.
Ekweremadu is currently serving time in the UK after being convicted for his role in an organ-trafficking scheme involving a young man taken to London for a kidney transplant. In 2023, a British court sentenced him to nine years and eight months after finding him guilty of conspiring to exploit the victim, an offence prosecuted under the Modern Slavery Act.
In a recent diplomatic effort, President Bola Tinubu sent a high-level team to London to plead for Ekweremadu’s transfer. The delegation—comprising Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar and Attorney General Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi—held talks with senior officials of the UK Ministry of Justice. Despite the intervention, British authorities maintained that Ekweremadu must continue serving his sentence in the UK.
The development adds to the growing sensitivity surrounding legal cooperation between both countries, especially in matters involving prominent Nigerians facing criminal charges abroad.
Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice, and a medical doctor were all convicted in March 2023 for arranging the victim’s travel with the intention of harvesting his kidney. The judgment marked the first conviction of its kind involving a Nigerian public figure under the UK’s modern slavery laws.
