By Uche AmunikeOne week after former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu organ trafficking allegations and arrest in the United Kingdom, the Nigerian Senate has continued to be silent over the matter, even at the Senate plenary that was held, Tuesday.
Senator Ekweremadu was arrested alongside his wife, Mrs Beatrice Ekweremadu last week by the London Metropolitan Police who charged them for allegedly trafficking a young man named David Nwanini, with the intention of harvesting his kidney.
Ekweremadu was accused of bringing the 15year old boy from Nigeria to the UK, with the claim that he wanted to give him a better life, whereas his real reason was to harvest his organ in order to donate it to his daughter, Sonia Ekweremadu who was suffering from Kidney disease and needed a new kidney.
He was tried alongside his wife at the Uxbridge Magistrate Court in London where they were both denied bail because the passport produced by Ekweremadu for the boy claimed that he was 21 years old, but according to investigations, the boy was 15years old.
When the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, were reached, they affirmed that their records showed that the age of the alleged victim, David Nwamini was 21 which contradicted the claims of the prosecutors in London.
They also stated that documents provided by the victim from the National Population Commission, (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), showed that his date of birth was October 12, 2000.
This contradiction has largely cast some doubts on the true story behind Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s organ harvesting saga.
Meanwhile, while the Nigerian Senate has refused to bring up the matter during the last plenary, as expected by Nigerians, seeing that it was of national expedience, most Nigerians have expressed their disappointment in their various social media platforms at the nonchalance displayed by the lawmakers and what they termed insensitivity, especially as two Senators representing Ekweremadu’s senatorial zone, Chukwuka Utazi and Chimaraoke Nnamani, both PDP members, made contributions to other matters discussed at the floor of the Senate, but kept mum on the controversial Ike Ekweremadu organ trafficking debacle which is presently causing a lot of ripples nationally and internationally.
The embattled Ekweremadu served as Chief of Staff and subsequently, Secretary to the Enugu State Government during the time of Nnamani. He eventually moved to the Senate in 2003 where he served as Deputy Senate President for 12 years. It is however not clear if the silence on the part of the Nigerian Senate was unanimously decided before Tuesday’s proceedings.
In any case, even though the Upper Chamber has been mute on Ike Ekweremadu’s organ trafficking controversy, their colleagues at the House of Representatives have waded in the matter by extending an invitation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama as well as the Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Aliyu Aziz, to update the necessary committees of the House on the trial of the embattled couple in London.
The DG of the Nigerian Immigration Services. Idris Jere has also been invited to appear before the committee.
