A Nigerian street trader at the centre of an alleged organ‑harvesting plot involving former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu told judges he believed he was travelling to Britain to work. The 21‑year‑old was allegedly brought to the UK to donate a kidney to the sick daughter of the former Deputy Senate President in exchange for a cash reward. In his testimony at the Old Bailey, he said he did not even know why he was being taken to see a doctor and that he was being “controlled” and instructed to lie about having a family connection with the Ekweremadus before a consultation at the Royal Free Hospital. Ultimately, a doctor at the north‑London hospital concluded he was unsuitable as a donor for 25‑year‑old Sonia Ekweremadu, the court heard.
Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, their daughter Sonia, 25, and a medical “middleman,” Obinna Obeta, 50, are charged with conspiring to arrange or facilitate the young man’s travel to Britain for the purpose of exploitation. The witness explained that he was born and raised in a Nigerian village, the oldest of nine children of a carpenter and his wife. He attended a village school until age 15, when he left to help his parents financially. An uncle took him to Lagos, where he worked selling phone accessories. After four years he started his own wheel‑barrow business, earning roughly N3,000–N4,000 a day.
When asked how he came to fly to London from Lagos, the witness, who gave evidence by video link with an interpreter, said Obinna Obeta was the man who brought him to the UK. “He asked me what I was doing; I told him I was selling phone accessories in Lagos and he started talking about coming to London. He said he would take me to London, let me stay at his house, and I would work,” he recalled. He travelled to Abuja for tests and passport photographs, seeing his passport only at the visa interview and not again until his departure for the UK. When questioned about his expectations in London, he answered, “To work, any type of work that I would get paid.” He believed Dr Obeta was helping him because he was “from God.”
After arriving in the UK, the young man was photographed sharing a meal with Sonia Ekweremadu and smiling at the camera. He said that during the meeting, those present “only discussed among themselves” and asked him no questions. Later that week, Dr Obeta took him to the Royal Free Hospital for a consultation, which the witness thought was a preliminary test before he could start work. Before entering the hospital, he met Sonia Ekweremadu, a tall Nigerian man who had escorted him on the plane, and another woman. He described being told where to stay and feeling controlled: “They said I was going to see the doctor. The doctor would ask me questions and they would give me the answers.” He was instructed to lie, claiming he had attended a “higher institution” and that he and Sonia were cousins. Obeta told him to tell the doctor that he was not being paid, providing false answers to any questions.
Inside the hospital, an interpreter warned him that what he was being asked to do “was not a small thing.” He admitted he did not understand the warning because he still did not know why he had been brought to the hospital. The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, north‑west London, and Dr Obeta, from Southwark, south London, deny the charges. The Old Bailey trial continues.
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