By Okey Igwesi
The shameful and rejected diplomatic request to return Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu from Britain to Nigeria to serve out his eight year and six months prison term, is yet another diplomatic desperation and humiliation of the All Progressive Congress (APC) government in its plot to capture Enugu State in the 2027 general elections!
Ekweremadu was jailed by a British Crown Court in London for a crime of complicity in organ harvesting of a young, poor Nigerian who was said to have been transported to Britain by the Ekweremadu family. According to available media reports, the young man’s kidney organ was to be harvested for a surgical transplant to Sonia, Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s eldest daughter who had a kidney failure.
The All Progressive Congress, APC government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a recent but desperate move, believed that getting Senator Ekweremadu out of British cell where he is currently serving an eight years and six months prison term to Nigeria, will serve as, “a magic ward and big fish” for his party, the APC to capture Enugu state whose governor, Dr Peter Mbah, has defected to. Tinubu also believed, rightly or wrongly, his presidential second term bid come 2027 general election, would work according to his permutations. But is appears to be politics and campaign behind the request for the former Enugu West Senator and prominent politician in the state cooling off in British prison to come back to Nigeria .
The refusal by the British government to grant the request, however, is another set back in the ambitious dream of the ruling APC to fully penetrate the South East zone politically with Enugu State in focus. This is the area and the same state the APC in the past had been totally rejected!
This move has equally dented Nigeria’s image before the international community, and moreover has reduced the Nigerian politicians as a class of people with low moral value for the peoples lives. It has also exposed the APC as a party and government without a defined foreign policy and diplomatic focus. Besides, it has equally exposed the Nigeria’s judicial system as one without hope or that which can be trusted for justice!
Why is the APC government interested in the return back of Senator Ike Ekweremadu to serve the rest of his prison term in Nigeria? Why was this issue a major concern to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his party and government to the extent of sending special government delegation to Britain to lobby for the release or transfer of this particular prisoner to Nigeria?
If the president truly trust and believe in the rule of law, and that all are equal before the law, why was he very specific on this one prisoner (Senator Ike Ekweremadu) to return to Nigeria and without due regards and same request for many other Nigerians in British prisons even with less offence and fewer prison terms? These and more are the questions agitating the minds of many Nigerians.
This is pure hypocrisy! Which the British government may have reasoned out and strongly stood their ground to reject this ill-advised and premature request!
Our judicial process, in recent times, has become a huge mockery and what many see as a cesspool of corruption that can not be trusted or relied upon justice, equity and fairness. This is very unfortunate! The opinions of many, including the international community who had continued to criticise “this corrupt system”, is that Nigeria is not a serious country.
The nation’s judiciary has been reduced to a “cash and carry” judiciary and an exclusive and ready tool in hands of government and the corrupt political leaders for the intimidation and humiliation of political opponents and perceived enemies.
Guise what? If this unholy request for transfer of Senator Ike Ekweremadu to Nigeria to continue his prison term had been successful, he would have been used as “a political symbol “broom” of the APC to deceive the public. This executive gambit is more like a game plan for campaign to capture the heart of the people of Enugu, the state where Sen Ike Ekweremadu comes from, and which the APC had lost hope in it’s capability to “politically capture”. It is the same state governor Peter Mbah who recently decamped from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to APC with the expectation to deliver Enugu state to APC Come 2027 elections.
The world should note and would have been disappointed to observe the trick the APC as a party would have played with the return of Senator Ike Ekweremadu, had the British government granted this request “before the plane conveying Senator Ekweremadu could land at any Nigeria airport, the APC government would have instantly, on arrival, declared him, “a hero” with state pardon automatically granted him and a reception in tow into APC”!
This was the plan the British government must have reasoned before refusing to grant Tinubu administration’s request and insisted that Senator Ike Ekweremadu must serve out his prison term in their country, Britain.
…Okey Igwesi is a veteran journalist based in Kaduna.
