Ike Ekweremadu, the former deputy president of the Senate, has denied offering money to a potential kidney donor in order to save his ill daughter Sonia.
In London, the lawmaker, his wife, Beatrice, and their daughter, who is 25 years old, are on trial for allegedly trafficking a young Nigerian man to be a kidney donor.
It was alleged that the Ekweremadus offered the 21-year-old trader £7,000 in order to obtain his kidney. The Ekweremadus feigned to be Sonia’s cousin and flew him to London.
In his opening remarks at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Martin Hicks’s lawyers, as reported by the Daily Mail, insisted that they believed the donor was acting “altruistically.”
“Please be alive to the possible cultural differences between this country and that of Nigeria, particularly to altruistic donation,” Hicks instructed the jurors.
“We believe that the issue in this case is straightforward: was there a contract to exploit the donor in the manner that the prosecution alleges, and if so, who was a party to it?
“The expression “everyone is each other’s keeper” is prevalent in Nigerian society, and the altruistic donation of organs is not as uncommon there as it is in this nation.
He will also say that he was informed that the donor had offered to donate a kidney to Sonia for charity.
According to Hicks, Ekweremadu did not visit the Royal Free Hospital in February or March of last year, indicating that the donor was not suitable.
He continued, “In April 2022, he continued the family search for a suitable donor for his daughter Sonia and that search continues with the assistance of Diwe.”
We question whether the donor was exploited, as the prosecution suggests.
John Femi-Ola, Sonia’s attorney, stated, “She suffers from a very severe kidney disease.” She undergoes dialysis three times per week.
It takes four hours for each session.
“The treatment is for the rest of her life unless there is a transplant in the future, which must now be very unlikely given the amount of media attention this case has received,” the statement reads.
In June 2022, Ekweremadu and his wife were taken into custody at London’s Heathrow Airport. They were taken to a Magistrate’s Court right away and charged with bringing a young man into the country to allegedly harvest his organs.
While his wife was granted bail by a criminal court in London, he has been held by UK authorities since June 23.