The UK government has turned down a request to send Ike Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President, to Nigeria to finish his prison sentence for trafficking organs.
Daily Trust said that Ekweremadu is serving a sentence of nine years and eight months for plotting to take a man’s kidney.
Earlier reports said that President Bola Tinubu’s government sent a high-level group to the UK to talk to British officials earlier this month.
The team met with officials from the UK Ministry of Justice in London. It comprised Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi.
Later, Ambassador Mohammed Maidugu, the Acting High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, met the team at the Nigerian High Commission in London.
Reliable sources say that the meeting was part of President Bola Tinubu’s efforts to get either Ekweremadu’s early release or a review of his sentence on humanitarian and legal grounds.
But the UK Guardian said today that the British government turned down the request.
A source at the Ministry of Justice told the newspaper that the request was turned down.
The report said, “The UK government was worried that Nigeria couldn’t promise that Ekweremadu would serve his prison sentence after being deported.”
A spokeswoman for the government claimed they couldn’t talk about specific convicts. They went on to say, “We can transfer any prisoner at our discretion after carefully considering whether it would be in the interests of justice.”
A source said, “The UK will not put up with modern slavery, and anyone who breaks the law will face the full force of UK law.”
Beatrice Ekweremadu was given a sentence of four years and six months, half of which she spent in jail. She was released earlier this year and has since returned to Nigeria.
The UK government has not yet officially responded to the news.
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