Embattled Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 60, yesterday told the Old Bailey Court, London that his failure to seek family member to donate kidney to his daughter was not a deliberate act.
He made the clarification yesterday while responding to the prosecution’s accusation that he failed to ask any family members to “step up” and help.
The Senator is accused of conspiring with others to exploit a Nigerian youth whose name cannot be mentioned according to court rules. The former deputy Senate president denies the charges. The boy who was a hawker in the streets of Lagos was taken to London as a kidney donor for Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia.
Ekweremadu’s wide Beatrice, 56, daughter Sonia, 25, and his doctor Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, also deny the conspiracy charge. Under cross-examination yesterday, Ekweremadu was asked why he had not tried to find a suitable match among his family members. He said he believed it was not an option after being relayed a conversation between his medic brother Diwe and Dr Obeta in September 2021.
Continuing, he said: “He would have had basic knowledge. I’m not a doctor so if he says so, I believe him.”
Prosecutor Hugh Davies KC questioned why the Senator had not asked one of the specialists he was consulting at the Royal Free whether a family member could donate a kidney. Ekweremadu suggested he had “limited intelligence”; something the prosecutor said was untrue.
“The fact is, you did not even try to ask Sonia’s cousins, for example, to consider acting as a donor,” Davies told the court. “Far better to buy one and let the medical risk go to someone you don’t know.”
Ekweremadu said it was “not true” that he had agreed through agents to recruit a donor to give a kidney to his daughter for a reward. Davies told the jury that after transferring jurisdiction out of the UK to Turkey, the defendants failed to get a transplant “because even that donor had not been trained properly to give the false answers when interviewed”.
Ekweremadu replied: “These are not the facts.” Davies then queried why the Ekweremadu’s had been prepared to leave an “internationally recognised centre of excellence” in London for an unknown quantity in Turkey.
Ekweremadu said that treatment in Turkey was cheaper, but Davies responded that the senator was a “wealthy man” who owned dozens of properties. The defendant denied being rich. The trial has previously heard that the Nigerian youth who cannot be named was to be paid up to £7,000 and promised opportunities in the UK for helping Sonia Ekweremadu.
After he was rejected for being an unsuitable match by medics at London’s Royal Free Hospital, the group turned their attention to Turkey, the court heard. The trial continues.
Credit : Sunnewsonline
