Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has written to a UK court pleading for clemency for a former Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and his wife, Beatrice, who were recently convicted for organ harvesting.

This was stated in a leaked letter dated April 3, 2023, and addressed to the Chief Clerk of the Court, titled ‘Re: Ike Ekweremadu.’

Obasanjo stated that while the Enugu West Senator’s action is condemnable and unacceptable, he has contributed his quota to Nigeria’s socio-political development, and thus his punishment should take into account his past records of good deeds and the plight of his ailing daughter.

In March, the Old Bailey Court in London, UK found Senator Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta guilty of an organ-harvesting plot involving a London NHS hospital.

They were found guilty of conspiring to exploit a young man from Lagos for his body part.

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Ekweremadus’ 25-year-old daughter Sonia, who was to receive a kidney donation from the trafficking victim, wept as she was cleared of the same charge by the court.

The former Deputy Senate President and his wife were arrested in the UK and charged with trafficking of a 21-year-old street trader from Lagos, for organ harvesting with intent to provide a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The letter reads: “My dear Chief Clerk, may I seize this opportunity to commend your utmost dedication and resourcefulness which you have demonstrated with rare qualities of commitment and courage, while also upholding the cherished traditions of the Public Service. I am Olusegun Obasanjo, a soldier commissioned into the British Army of the West African Frontier Force in 1958, and rose to the rank of a full General in the Nigerian Army. I received the surrender of the Biafran Army at the end of the Nigerian civil war. I was military Head of State from 1976 to 1979 and elected President from 1999 to 2007.

“It is with great pleasure that I write in respect of Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who I have known for over two decades. Within this period, I have followed and watched, with keen interest, Ike Ekweremadu’s inspiring career which traversed private legal practice and administration. I recall, with fond memories, the beginnings of our political and social relationship at the outset of our collective quest for democratic rebirth for our fatherland. During my administration as a democratically-elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007, Ike Ekweremadu and had close relationship and interactions as staunch members of our political party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and more so as he got elected into the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2003, of which he has since remained a member till date. Within this period of his service in the Nigerian Parliament, he has served as Deputy Senate President of the Senate and has headed so many Committees in various capacities and brought to bear his broad-based experience in legal practice and public administration. Sometime in 2009, he was appointed as the First Deputy Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and made to lead ad hoc Committee to work for the return of constitutional order in the Niger Republic.

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“I clearly remember that in the heady days of the keen contest for the presidential ticket of our Party early 1999, he joined other well-meaning Nigerians from the South-Eastern part of Nigeria to set aside extraneous considerations and ensured that South East unanimously adopted me for the Presidency.

“This was without regard to the fact that my closest competitor hailed from their part of the country. I truly cherish his God-fearing, dispassionate, moderate and pan-Nigerian approach to national issues and developments, in our multi-ethnic, multi-religious geo-polity. He dedicates himself to the service of God and humanity and he continues to play visible roles in national development. Through the Ikeoha Foundation, a non- governmental organization founded by him and his wife, in 1997, he and his wife have rendered a lot of charitable activities, enhancing poor people’s access to quality education and healthcare and building their capacity to participate in mainstream social, political and economic activities of their communities. Ike Ekweremadu’s conferment with the coveted national honour of Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR, is further testimony to his selfless service to our our country, Nigeria.

“Mr. Chief Clerk, I am very much aware of the current travails and conviction of Ike Ekweremadu and his wife in the United Kingdom resulting from their being charged with conspiring to arrange the travel of a 21-year-old from Nigeria to the UK in order to harvest organs for their daughter. I do realise the implications of their action and I dare say, it is unpleasant and condemnable and can’t be tolerated in any sane or civilized society.

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“However, it is my fervent desire that for the very warm relations between the United Kingdom and Federal Republic of Nigeria; for his position as one of the distinguished Senators in the Nigerian Parliament, and also for the sake of their daughter in question whose current health condition is in danger and requires an urgent medical attention, you will use your good offices to intervene and appeal to the court and the government of the United Kingdom to be magnanimous enough to temper justice with mercy and let punishment that may have to come take their good character and parental instinct and care into consideration.

“I do hope Mr. and Mrs. Ekweremadu have learnt from this distressing experience of theirs to guide their future actions or inactions so they will continue to be outstanding members of their community and will continue to contribute fully to the good of the society in particular and the nation in general,” the letter added.