Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, reiterated to the Old Bailey yesterday that he did what “was expedient” to save his daughter’s life while giving evidence.
Ekweremadu, who is on a “conspiracy to facilitate and arrange travel with the aim of exploitation” trial with his wife, Beatrice; their daughter, Sonia and Dr. Obinna Obeta, admitted to the Court that they knew that David Nwamini, who Obeta had sourced to donate his kidney to Sonia, was not her cousin.
Notwithstanding, he still went ahead to provide a supporting visa application letter in December 2021, claiming Nwamini and his daughter are maternal cousins. This, he reiterated, was the guidance from Obeta.
Under cross-examination for the second day from Hugh Davies, KC, the prosecutor cited among others, a dialogue between Obeta and one Dr. Chris Agbo on February 19, last year, about the visa application.
Davies asked: “Were you aware of this dialogue “of maintaining “a lie” that Nwamini and Sonia are not “distant” but “maternal cousins?”
An already agitated Ekweremadu replied with “l was not aware,” but “the only lie here is the issue of cousin. We’ve said we’re sorry” for that. Continuing, he told the packed Courtroom 5, “everything l said in that letter is true and is still true today.”
The Senator added that in the three letters he wrote concerning the application, he made it clear that Nwamini was coming for medical assessments. He also said that unknown to them, Nwamini’s plan was to Japa (flee Nigeria) and to seek “asylum” in the United Kingdom.
The Crown also referenced an update that Diwe, the senator’s younger brother was giving him on February 25, also of last year. In it, he was saying that they had met Evelyn – who served as an Igbo interpreter – an employee of Royal Free Hospital, Hempstead, and she has agreed to work for them on coaching Nwamini in order to maintain that he is Sonia’s maternal cousin.
When Davies said that was “completely unambiguous,” Ekweremadu responded from the witness box, saying “l’ve explained it to you “already that it was a lie and that he was sorry for it.”
Like on Thursday, Friday’s proceedings started with a defence witness via video link. Former Executive Medical Director of North Middlesex Hospital, Prof. Stanley Okolo, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician, told the court that he had known Ekweremadu for “approximately 20 years.”
Asked when he first knew of Sonia’s ill health, he said it was in June 2020, when “Ike Ekweremadu contacted me that his daughter had collapsed.” He went on to recommend Dr. Peter DuPont, who then took care of her care for a few months. DuPont had been to the trial as a prosecution expert witness.
