‘I Was Crying and Shaking’ Witness Tells UK Organ Harvesting Trial as He Recalls Hearing About Kidney Transplant

He says telling police he was 15 was an 'act of frustration'

Sonia Ekweremadu outside the Old Bailey, in central London, where she is on trial, on Feb. 9, 2023. PA

LONDON—A street trader from Nigeria has told a trial of his shocked reaction when he was told by a doctor in a London hospital he was there to donate one of his kidneys to someone, who turned out to be the daughter of a wealthy politician.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a senator in Nigeria and a former deputy president of the country’s senate, and his wife Beatrice, 56, are accused of bringing the mobile phone accessories hawker to the UK with a medical visa in order for him to donate a kidney to save the life of their daughter Sonia.

Ekweremadu, his wife and their daughter Sonia, 25, are on trial at the Old Bailey in London, along with Obinna Obeta, a doctor.

All four deny conspiracy to arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to their exploitation.

The 21-year-old donor—who cannot be named for legal reasons—arrived in the UK in February 2022 and underwent tests at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, but the operation did not go ahead.

The donor gave evidence on Monday on a video link and was accompanied by an Ibo interpreter, although he answered most of his questions in heavily accented English.

Ike Ekweremadu (L), the then deputy president of the Nigerian Senate, with senate president Bukola Saraki (R), pictured in Abuja, Nigeria on June 27, 2016. Philip Ojisua AFP via Getty Images

Prosecutor Hugh Davies, KC, asked him about his first visit to the Royal Free Hospital.

The witness said: “The doctor asked me if I was knew why I was there and I said I didn’t. He said he wanted to do a kidney transplant. I was shocked. That was the first time I heard about a kidney transplant.”

He said the doctor told him not to worry, and that they would not be going ahead with the operation.

The witness said: “The doctor said I’m not going to touch you and I should stop worrying and not be afraid, because I was crying and shaking.”

Earlier Davies asked him about his childhood and he said he grew up in a village in eastern Nigeria that did not have electricity or running water.

The witness said he left school at 15 and went to Lagos, where he began working in his uncle’s mobile phone accessories shop before he himself branched out and got his own wheelbarrow.

The court has heard the allegations relate to a period between August 2021 and May 5, 2022.

The witness said he earned 300-400 naira (55 pence to 72 pence) a day selling mobile phone accessories when he was contacted in late 2021 by a stranger—Obeta—who called him from England and offered to bring him to London and find him work.

Davies asked him why he thought Obeta wanted to help him.

‘I Think He Was From God’

“I think he was from God,” he replied.

The witness said he was told to go from Lagos to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to undergo medical tests and, when he passed them, he was granted a passport and a visa.

He told Davies he was not allowed to hold the passport, which remained in the possession of the man he flew to London with in February 2022.

The witness said he stayed at Obeta’s house and a couple of days later was introduced to two women, one of whom was older than the other.

Beatrice Ekweremadu, wife of Nigeria's former deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, leaves the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, in London on January 31, 2023. Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

Davies showed him a photograph of the witness with a young woman and asked him if he recognised her.

He said it was Sonia Ekweremadu.

The court has heard that Sonia has a serious kidney condition called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis with nephrotic syndrome, which could only be cured in the long-term by a kidney transplant.

The witness said a few days later he was taken to a hospital and, before he went in, he was told how to answer various questions from the doctor.

Told to Lie

He said he was instructed to lie to a doctor and say Sonia was his cousin.

Davies asked him: “Was Sonia your cousin?”

“No. It’s not my cousin,” he replied.

The witness said that after the first hospital visit he was told by Obeta they had collected 1.2 million naira (£2,400) which they would pay him to go through with the organ transplant.

He said Obeta used him as a “houseboy” for the next couple of weeks and also got him to clean a children’s play centre and some toilets, but did not give him any money.

The witness said he felt “used” and he said he became scared when Obeta brought two men to the house and they asked him to get undressed and examined him, pressing down on his stomach without saying anything.

“I knew what they were up to, they wanted my kidney,” said the witness.

The jury has been told the transplant did not go ahead at the Royal Free Hospital in London because two nephrologists, Dr. Peter Dupont and Dr. Philip Masson, decided the donor was not suitable as a donor for Sonia Ekweremadu.

The jury has been told Sonia was informed of this decision on March 29, 2022, and he said from April 1, 2022, there is evidence her parents immediately began searching for another donor, and also began to explore the possibility of doing the transplant in Turkey.

The witness said he left Obeta’s home in southeast London and walked for three days, sleeping outside, before he walked into a police station in Staines, west of London, on May 5, 2022.

Davies asked him why he told the police initially he was 15.

“It was an act of frustration,” he replied.”

The trial continues.