The London Metropolitan Police have charged two Nigerians with conspiracy to traffic a child to the United Kingdom in order to harvest organs, the law enforcement said on Thursday.
The accused – a woman and a man – have the same names and ages as Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu.
The police said the charges followed an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime team and gave some details of the accused as follows:
[A] Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55 (10.9.66) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.
[B] Ike Ekweremadu, 60 (12.05.62) of Nigeria is charged with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.
“The investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential offences under modern slavery legislation in May 2022,” the police said.
The pieces of biographical data provided match the publicly available personal data of Mr Ekweremadu, a serving senator and former Deputy Senate President, and his wife.
From the Pandora Papers investigation, it was learnt that Mr Ekweremadu is a UK resident.
Mr Ekweremadu’s spokesperson, Uche Anichukwu, has been contacted but has yet to respond to our questions as of the time of this report.
“They have both been remanded in custody and will appear at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court later today,” Met said.
“As criminal proceedings are now underway we will not be providing further details,” Met said.
While the police did not state the gender of the child, they said “A child has been safeguarded and we are working closely with partners on continued support.”
Yesterday, many Nigerians on Twitter criticized former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu for saying the South-East region will not vote for the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, in the 2023 presidential election.
