Ohaneze Ndigbo describes attempt to get Ekweremadu's seat declared vacant satanic

PAN-Igbo cultural organisation Ohaneze Ndigbo has described the attempt to get the seat of former deputy senate president Senator Ike Ekweremadu declared vacant because he is currently absent from the National Assembly as satanic.

In June, Senator Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice were arrested by London's Metropolitan Police on suspicion of child trafficking and planned organ harvesting. They were charged before Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.

Both of them were denied bail at the time and were remanded in custody until the case were heard again on July 26 at the Westminster Magistrates Court, when Beatrice was released but her husband was denied bail. In the first such case of its kind involving Nigerians, the Ekweremadus were accused of conspiring to traffic a homeless man into the UK to harvest his kidney for their daughter.

As a result of his travails, Senator Ekweremadu can no longer attend settings of the senate as he is being detained in London. This has led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aspirant Chief Ogochukwu Onyema to file a suit seeking to get Senator Ekweremadu's Enugu West Senatorial District seat declared vacant.

In the suit filed at the Federal High Court sitting in Enugu, Chief Onyema prayed the court to declare the seat occupied by Senator Ekweremadu vacant. However, Ohanaeze Ndigbo described Chief Onyema’s action as satanic.

Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, the national president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council, said: “We find it agonising that any human being could come up with this kind of satanic and acidic suit against Senator Ike Ekweremadu. It is even more cruel coming at a time when it has been revealed that Senator Ekweremadu is facing health challenges in detention.

"One expects any person with conscience to empathise with the lawmaker in the face of these challenges. As an Enugu West man whom Ekweremadu is representing, he has never shown sympathy since Ekweremadu started going through all these difficulties.

“The only thing he could do was to institute a court case against Ekweremadu. This reconfirms our fear that the enemies are within. So many people have a hand on what befell Ekweremadu, but man is not God.

“We call on the plaintiff to immediately withdraw that suit for the sake of posterity and human conscience. Nobody is immune to health challenges, it can happen to any other person. Barrister Ogochukwu Onyema should without wasting time withdraw the satanic suit if indeed he is a true Igbo man, who are known to be their brother’s keeper.”