By Kazeem Akintunde
While putting to ‘bed’ last week’s column titled: ‘Buhari’s Eight-Year
Rule: A Postscript (2)’, a friend called to suggest that I should write on
the travails of the former Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu,
who was recently sentenced to nine years in prison, alongside his wife,
Beatrice, and their Doctor, Obinna Obeta, for four, and 10 years,
respectively. His argument was that the sentencing of Ekweremadu and
his wife was unprecedented in the history of Nigeria and that it would be
a topical issue for some days. I thanked him and continue work on last
week’s edition of The Discourse.
Indeed, for a former Nigerian Senate President to now be condemned to
a nine-year jail term in the United Kingdom, his mug shot taken and
splashed on newspapers all over the world, condemned to resident in one
dingy cell and dining in the midst of common felons in a foreign land, to
say the least, is demeaning. But Ekeremadu, a lawyer, actually walked
into trouble with his eyes wide open. I knew for a fact that he would end
up in jail as the UK police had a very tight case against him.
You do not
sponsor a full-grown man into the UK with a view of extracting one of
his kidneys to replace that of your daughter and expect to escape justice
because you are a ‘big man’ in Nigeria. In spite of the ‘show mercy’
letter written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian
Senate, the House of Representatives, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who heads
NIDCOM and many prominent Nigerians, the UK Judge was undeterred
from upholding the law of the land, and sent Ekweremadu to where he
rightly belongs, in my unbiased opinion.
While many may not spare a thought for the young man, my main
concern this week is the treatment meted out to Citizen David Nwamini
Ukpo, the young man that was actually trafficked to the UK for one of
his vital organs. Since the saga began, the focus of many Nigerians have
been on the Ekweremadu’s. The series of interventions by well-meaning
Nigerians have been about what the government can do to rescue
Ekweremadu and his wife, or give them a soft-landing. However, I’m
not sure that Nigerian government official have visited David Nwamini
Ukpo in the UK to find out how he has been faring. Has any agency of
government, including NIDCOM, or even the Nigerian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs bothered to ask about the welfare of this young man?
Where is he staying? What is he doing? How is he feeding? Our activists
and the media don’t seem to care much about him. Another victim of
circumstance has been abandoned to his fate. If the UK decides to deport
him to Nigeria, that’s his business. The UK government must be
wondering what kind of people we are. What kind of country will forget
one of its own, particularly of a most vulnerable group, the way we have
abandoned David.
Here is a boy that was on the streets of Lagos, trying to eke out a living
for himself under the sun and in the rain, running after vehicles in traffic
to sell whatever he could lay his hands on just to survive. An indigene of
Ebonyi State, David came to Lagos after his secondary education to join
his elder brother who is into sales of phone accessories. With poor
parents back at home, he nursed the ambition that fortune would smile
on him and diligently went about seeking his daily bread. He has heard
of better places like the UK, USA, and several other European countries
where many young Nigerians are leaving the country in droves to seek
greener pastures and must have dreamed and hoped and prayed that his
‘CHI’ would make it happen for him too. Imagine what he’s have
thought was his fortune when his prayers were ‘answered’ upon the
Ekweremadu’s, through their agents, seeking him out and offering to
take him to the UK for an organ transplant. At that period, what must
have registered in his brain was the opportunity to travel out of the
country to ‘oyinbo land’. Organ transplantation or even the organ that is
to be transplanted may have held little or no meaning to him. In his head
and at that material time, what must have been going through his mind
was ‘yes, get me to the UK first, and other issues shall take care of
itself’.
The day he stepped his foot on the UK soil must definitely have counted
as one of the happiest days of his life, as he starts dreaming of how to
change the trajectory of his life and that of his immediate family. Indeed,
as he told the judge at the Old Barley London Court, he had begun
dreaming of going to a higher institution, working, and possibly playing
football. His dream was almost aborted after he was taken to the Royal
Free Hospital in the UK where he was asked whether he willingly
agreed for one of his kidneys to be removed. It was at this stage that he
innocently asked what a kidney transplant was. The doctor that was to
perform the surgery felt understandably puzzled and uncomfortable,
believing that the process and what the young man was brought to the
UK had not been properly explained to him and tagged the process a
‘mismatch’. And to save his license in a country where the rule of law
works to the letter, he had to inform the police. The police launched a
discreet investigation and laid low, hoping to pick up any of the parties
involved at the airport.
After the ‘mismatch’ tagged by the doctor, and with David no longer
useful to the Ekweremadu’s, plans are set in motion to return him to
Nigeria. When he was told of the home-ward journey, David, who has
tasted the sweet side of London, ran away from where he was lodged
and actually walked into a police station to report himself after
wandering on the streets of UK for three days without food and money.
Dr. Obeta, who oragnised the sourcing of David and his kidney collected
N3.5 million for the boy, but gave him only N270,000. The moment he
walked into a police station to narrate his ordeal, David was placed in
protective custody while the manhunt for the Ekweremadu’s was
launched. But the UK police did not have to wait long as the duo were
arrested while on their way to Turkey, purportedly to get another organ
donor. The search for a kidney by the Ekweremadu’s has to do with their
daughter, Sonia, who has kidney problem, and needed a transplant. The
love for their daughter, I believe, pushed the parents to become
desperate. I blame them.
If Ekweremadu and his friends in the corridors of power have done what
was expected of them for our nation’s health sector, he would have been
spared this embarrassing episode and not be behind bars in a foreign
land today. Since 1999, Ekweremadu has been one of the elected leaders
that the people had hoped would turn the fortunes of Nigeria and
Nigerians around. They could have established world-class medical
facilities across the six geo-political zones of the country. They could
have hired the best brains all over the world to man those facilities. They
could have bought healthcare equipment worth several millions of
dollars for those facilities so that they and other Nigerians could enjoy
such facilities when the need arose. But they rather accumulate the
wealth of the nation for themselves and their immediate families,
choosing to travel to any part of the world for the simplest health
challenges as money was no longer a problem. Now, the ‘anyhownes’
that our so-called leaders are known for has caught up with him and his
wife, and his friends are now looking in the direction of the newly
crowned King Charles III to grant them pardon. I wish him luck.
As I rightly stated above, my main concern is what becomes of David.
Already, he has told the Judge that he would like to seek asylum in the
UK as he rightly observed, he may not be saved from the onslaught of
supporters of the Ekweremadu’s if he is brought back to Nigeria. I
believe he has a very bright chance of being granted asylum in the UK to
pursue his dreams and I wish him luck. At 21, he is still young and
opportunities abound. It is also worthy of commendation that despite his
travails, he told the judge that he is not interested in any momentary
compensation from the Ekweremadu’s and being a rugged young man
while on the streets of Lagos, it would not be difficult for him to adjust
to life in the UK.
From the Ekweremadu vs. David saga, though it sounds like the story of
David and Goliath in the Bible, I hoped our leaders pick one or two
lessons. It is time for them to start doing the right thing while in power.
Of what use is millions of dollars in your bank accounts that can’t be of
benefit to others? Nigeria has the potential of being among the top 10
countries in the World if our leaders have the will to use their power for
the interest of the people they lead. They need to reduce their lust for our
commonwealth for their personal aggrandizement. If they provide basic
infrastructure for the good of the masses, provide jobs on a large scale,
provide qualitative education for our children and they can eat three
square meals a day, the poor will be able to sleep at night while the
leaders would also sleep and snore.
Until those things are done, there will never be peace for our so-called
leaders.
See you next week.
