BREAKING NEWS: UK Rejects Nigeria’s Request for Ekweremadu’s Transfer to Serve Sentence at Home
The United Kingdom has reportedly turned down the Nigerian government’s request to allow Senator Ike Ekweremadu serve the remainder of his prison sentence in Nigeria.
Ekweremadu, a former deputy senate president, was convicted in March 2023 by a UK court and handed a nine-year, eight-month sentence for conspiring to harvest a young man’s kidney for his ailing daughter.
Earlier in November, President Bola Tinubu dispatched a high-level delegation to London to engage British authorities on the possibility of transferring Ekweremadu under existing prisoner-exchange frameworks. The delegation included Yusuf Tuggar, minister of foreign affairs, and Lateef Fagbemi, attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice.
However, according to a report by the UK Guardian, which cited an unnamed official of the UK Ministry of Justice, the request was declined, signaling London’s stance that Ekweremadu must continue serving his sentence in the UK.
The development is a major setback for diplomatic efforts to secure a transfer, and it raises fresh questions about the future of Ekweremadu’s incarceration — as well as Nigeria’s next diplomatic move in the high-profile case.