The just-imprisoned former Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu has been linked to three properties worth more than £6m in United Kingdom, a report by The Guardian UK, revealed.
The revelation was Matthew Page, a Nigeria expert at the US state department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research when he warned the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) of the “illicit activities” of Ekweremadu before his organ trafficking case.
Page who is now an associate fellow at the Chatham House said the organ trafficking case could have been foiled had the authority acted on his warnings about Ekweremadu and a dossier of material about his activities in Britain.
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Page examined how Nigerian politicians, including Ekweremadu, bought homes in the UK worth millions of pounds in partnership with the UK’s department for international development.
In addition, he investigated how politicians used funds accrued over the years to sponsor expensive private education for their children.
EKEWEREMADU’S UNEXPLAINED WEALTH
Page, according to the report “found that in a 12-year period, Ekweremadu would have made about £339,000 as a political office holder, including his stint as deputy president of the Nigerian senate.
“But in that period he bought three properties – two in London and one in Cambridge – worth £4.2m. The Old Bailey heard that Ekweremadu had an international property portfolio worth more than £6m.
“Page supplied the NCA with a dossier of information about how Ekweremadu had used unexplained wealth to fund his UK activities.
“Despite the warnings and financial red flags raised in the dossier, Ekweremadu’s organ trafficking plot went undetected until a young street trader from Lagos whom he had brought over fled to Staines police station in Surrey in May 2022 in fear for his life.”
Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison, while his wife, Beatrice, was sentenced to four years and six months for organ trafficking.
The couple had trafficked a 21-year-old male from Lagos to the UK to extract his kidney to transplant into Sonia Ekweremadu, their daughter. The three convicted are the first people to be jailed under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act, and prosecutors described it as a landmark judgment.
