The United Kingdom government has rejected a formal request from the Nigerian federal government to transfer former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu back to Nigeria to complete his prison sentence.

Ekweremadu is currently serving a nine-year, eight-month sentence in the UK after his 2023 conviction for conspiring to traffic a young man for the purpose of harvesting his kidney. The high-profile case drew global attention and marked the first organ-trafficking conviction under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act.

The UK’s decision means the former lawmaker will remain in a British prison, ending any immediate prospect of repatriation.

Last week, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, led a delegation to the UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ), where officials formally requested that Ekweremadu be transferred to Nigeria under a prisoner-transfer agreement.

However, a source within the MoJ confirmed that the request was declined, citing concerns that Nigeria could not provide adequate assurances that Ekweremadu would continue serving his full sentence if transferred.

While declining to comment on Ekweremadu specifically, a UK government spokesperson reiterated the country’s strict approach to prisoner transfers, saying:
“Any prisoner transfer is at our discretion following a careful assessment of whether it would be in the interests of justice.”

Another UK official added:
“The UK will not tolerate modern slavery, and any offender will face the full force of UK law.”

Ekweremadu’s wife, Beatrice Ekweremadu, who received a four-and-a-half-year sentence in the same case, was released earlier in the year after serving the custodial portion of her term and has since returned to Nigeria.

During sentencing, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson condemned the trio’s actions, describing organ harvesting as a form of “slavery” that treats human beings as commodities. He said Ekweremadu played the central role in the scheme, calling his conviction “a very substantial fall from grace.”

The Old Bailey trial revealed weaknesses in the UK health system that allowed the plot to reach an advanced stage. In February 2022, the trafficked young man was taken to a private renal unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London, with claims—later proven false—that he was the cousin of Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia and had consented to the £80,000 transplant.