Organ Harvesting: Ekweremadu’s Case Beyond Passport Issue, Says ex-NIS Comptroller
A former Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service(NIS), Muhammad Babandede, has asserted that the case against Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, was more than just a passport issue, and needed to be investigated.
Babandede reacted to the arrest of alleged organ harvesting against the former Deputy Senate President and wife amid ongoing controversy, on Arise TV on Friday.
Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, were reportedly arrested at Heathrow Airport in London and charged for plotting to harvest a Nigerian minor’s kidney.
At the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court, the husband and wife were said to have pleaded not guilty to the charges levied against them.
Magistrate Lois Sheard had remanded both defendants in custody till July 7th for the hearing of their bail application.
Ekweremadu had denied the allegations, and was reported to have shared a letter to the United Kingdom High Commission in Nigeria requesting a visa for the alleged minor involved.
“I will be very specific to you that this issue is a case of trafficking issue, not only passports. The Metropolitan police are accusing Mr and Mrs Ekweremadu of trafficking a person for organ harvesting. And when we talk about trafficking, there are many issues involved, we are talking about the act itself, the process and the purpose.
“So you need to analysed this before you even talk about the passport. Trafficking simply means you take a person from one place to another place by force with the intent of exploitation,” Babandede said.
He also said, “The truth of the matter is that what you declare to the Immigration is what the Immigration gives if we can prove that the person left Nigeria as a child and a passport was obtained to him as an adult even if he is a child.
“It means his consent was irrelevant even if he has given consent that he wants to donate because I have seen a letter circulated on social media which says that Ekweremadu has given a letter to the British High Commissioner that he wants to take him out in terms of transplant which means consent is there from the adult.
“So in trafficking, even if an adult consent is given, it could still be in the UK as a case of trafficking, but if that person was a child it has been circulated that the child was a 15-year-old somebody forged the passport in Nigeria. It depends on cooperation between Nigeria and the UK.”
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