Alleged Organ Harvesting: Court orders NIMC, others to release Nwamini’s biodata to Ekweremadu

The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Friday, ordered the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to release the biodata of David Nwamini to Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice.

Mr Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President and his wife, Beatrice, were arrested last week in the United Kingdom over a botched plan to harvest Mr Nwamini’s kidney for the couple’s ailing daughter.

The London Metropolitan Police arrested the Ekweremadus based on its investigations that Mr Nwanini, whom the couple took to London for organ harvesting, was a minor.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the prosecutors said the Ekweremadus were charged with bringing a 15-year-old boy from Nigeria to the UK with the claim that he was to be given a better life in the UK but was actually to harvest his organ

But the couple, who have been denied bail and face charges of organ trafficking in London, had insisted that Mr Nwanini was 21 years old.

They intend to prove their claim with the alleged victims’ official records in the custody of the relevant Nigerian authorities, including the NIMC.

Apart from the NIMC, others sued by the Ekweremadus are the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Stanbic-IBTC Bank, United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Ekweremadu appeared at the Uxbridge Magistrate’s Court in London on Thursday during which the prosecutor insisted that Mr Nwamini was coerced to donate his kidney and is 15 years old.

The court adjourned the case until July 7.

But the Federal High Court in Abuja where the Ekweremadus sued the relevant Nigerian authorities, on Friday, ordered the release of Mr Nwanini’s details to the couple to enable them to defend themselves in London.

The trial judge, Inyang Ekwo, ordered the NIMC, the Comptroller General of the NIS, Stanbic-IBTC Bank, United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc to furnish the Ekweremadus with official details of Mr Nwamini.

Background

In the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/984/2022, the plaintiffs asked the court to direct the NIMC to avail them the Certified True Copy of Mr Nwamini’s biodata information for the purposes of tendering same before the British Court in the pending criminal charge against them.

The suit followed the disclosure by immigration authorities in Nigeria that Mr Nwanini’s records from the National Population Commission (NPC) and NIMC gave his date of birth as October 12, 2000, as against the alleged claims by the organ donor that he is a 15-year-old.

In the court papers, Mr Ekweremadu’s lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, said Mr Nwanini was flown to the UK with his consent to be a kidney donor for their daughter.

But upon a medical examination of Mr Nwamini’s kidneys, it was discovered that none was a match for the couple’s daughter, the documents stated.