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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Nigerian senator who 'trafficked penniless market trader to Britain to provide a kidney for his sick daughter says 'cultural differences' mean people often give away their organs in Africa |
| 2023-02-09 |
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
A wealthy Nigerian politician has denied offering to reward his sick daughter's prospective kidney donor, saying selfless acts were less of a rarity in his country. Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, daughter Sonia, 25, and medical 'middleman' Obinna Obeta, 50, are accused of conspiring to arrange or facilitate the travel of the young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation. The 21-year-old street trader from Lagos was allegedly offered up to £7,000 and the promise of a better life in the UK in exchange for giving a kidney to Sonia Ekweremadu. It is alleged he was falsely presented as Sonia's cousin in a failed bid to persuade medics at the Royal Free Hospital in London to carry out the £80,000 private procedure. In opening addresses at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, lawyers for the defendants insisted they believed the donor, who cannot be identified, was acting 'altruistically'. The politician's case is that Dr Obeta had spoken to Ekweremadu's medically trained brother Diwe in the autumn of 2021 and had offered to help find Sonia a prospective donor. He denied lying in support of the donor's visa application to travel to the UK and was not privy to an online application which claimed the young man was related to Sonia. Mr Hicks said Ekweremadu did not attend any visits to the Royal Free Hospital in February and March last year, which concluded that the donor was unsuitable. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |