The United Kingdom government has rejected Nigeria’s request to transfer former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, back home to complete his prison sentence, PLATFORM TIMES has learnt.
The decision means the embattled lawmaker will remain in a British correctional facility where he is currently serving a nine-year and eight-month jail term for organ trafficking.
Ekweremadu, alongside his wife, Beatrice, and a medical doctor, was convicted in 2023 after a high-profile trial at the Old Bailey which exposed a plot to traffic a young man to London for the harvesting of his kidney for the couple’s ailing daughter, Sonia.
A diplomatic source told British journalists that the UK Ministry of Justice turned down Nigeria’s request because the federal government could not provide strong assurances that Ekweremadu would continue serving his sentence if repatriated.
“There were concerns about the lack of enforceable guarantees,” the source said, adding that the UK “will not tolerate modern slavery and any offender will face the full force of UK law.”
A spokesperson for the UK government declined to comment on Ekweremadu’s case specifically, citing policy, but stressed that “any prisoner transfer is at our discretion following a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice.”
Last week, a delegation led by Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, met UK officials to push for the former lawmaker’s transfer under an international prisoner-transfer arrangement. However, the discussions ended without a positive outcome.
The rejection effectively ends any immediate hope within political circles for Ekweremadu’s relocation, a move widely seen as an attempt to allow him serve the remainder of his term in a more familiar and possibly less stringent environment.
In his sentencing remarks, Justice Jeremy Johnson described Ekweremadu as the “driving force” behind what he called a “despicable trade”, warning that organ harvesting is “a form of slavery” which treats human beings as commodities.
The judge also said the trial exposed vulnerabilities within the UK health system to organ-trafficking attempts.
While Ekweremadu continues to serve his term, his wife Beatrice—sentenced to four years and six months—was released earlier this year after serving the custodial portion of her sentence. She has since returned to Nigeria.
Ekweremadu’s conviction remains one of the most dramatic scandals involving a Nigerian politician abroad, marking what the sentencing judge called “a very substantial fall from grace” for the once-powerful Senator.
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