{"id":39236,"date":"2023-05-06T17:16:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-06T17:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/?p=39236"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:16:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T17:16:10","slug":"i-feel-all-these-happened-because-of-me-sonia-ekweremadu-speaks-on-parents-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/2023\/05\/06\/i-feel-all-these-happened-because-of-me-sonia-ekweremadu-speaks-on-parents-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"I Feel All These Happened Because Of Me – Sonia Ekweremadu Speaks On Parents’ Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sonia, the daughter of former deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has broken her silence on the news of her parents\u2019 conviction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with BBC, Sonia said she feels guilty that her parents were convicted because they were looking for ways to find a solution to her health condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said although she understands why her parents were convicted, she disagrees with it from a \u201cvery biased perspective as their daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I understand the conviction, however, I personally disagree with it. That is from a very bias perspective as their daughter, I will obviously always back my parents.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“However, the law has taken its course, we just need to move on as one family,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On her kidney condition, she revealed that she has lymphatic syndrome, which means her kidney is small with large holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonia didn’t give a direct response on the portrayal of the 21-year-old Nigerian man who was brought to the U.K for the purported \u201ckidney donation\u201d<\/em> as her cousin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She further revealed that she has gotten so many donors after the case got to public space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about the man who was supposed to donate his kidney to her, she said she was not involved in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said: \u201cI didn\u2019t have a hand in it; it was mostly my family that handled everything about my medical side. I don\u2019t think things will ever be the same, already I feel guilty, because I feel all these happened because of me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also said that her father’s side were ruled out from donating because they have a history of kidney disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonia also said she and her parents don’t feel any anger towards the 21-year-old Nigerian man whose testimony led to their imprisonment, and that her parents are usually calm when she visits them in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonia who noted that things won’t remain the same following her parents’ conviction, added that she feels guilty because everything happened because of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A UK jury had in March 2023 found that Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice; and a doctor, Obinna Obeta, conspired to bring a 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young man was said to have been falsely presented as Sonia\u2019s cousin in a failed bid to persuade doctors to carry out an \u00a380,000 private procedure at the Royal Free Hospital in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young man was said to have been offered an illegal reward of \u00a37000 to become a donor for Sonia after a kidney disease forced her to drop out of a Master\u2019s degree in film at Newcastle University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their conviction was the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ekweremadu, who has represented the Enugu West Senatorial District for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party since 2003, was arrested on 21 June, 2022, by the UK Metropolitan Police for organ harvesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months, Beatrice was sentenced to four years and six months in prison, while \u201cmiddleman\u201d medical doctor Obeta received a 10-year prison term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sonia, the daughter of former deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has broken her silence on the news of her parents\u2019 conviction. In an interview with BBC, Sonia said she feels guilty that her parents were convicted because they were looking for ways to find a solution to her health condition. She said although she understands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8515,8516,2454],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39238,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39236\/revisions\/39238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofnaija.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}