By Sunday Ani
The Secretary General of the Africa Thinkers Union, Comrade Martins Chiedozie Ugwu, has written to the Central Criminal Court in London, the United Kingdom (UK), appealing for leniency on Nigeria’s former deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, who is standing trial in the UK for organ harvest.
In the letter addressed to the Clerk of the Court, Ugwu, who is also a former Country Representative of the Students World Assembly, said the letter was not meant to interfere with the already concluded trial awaiting sentencing, but stressed that it was to appeal to the Clerk’s conscience, so as to enable him understand Ekewremadu’s plight. “He should look at the matter from the angle of fatherhood, especially a responsible father who shoulders the responsibility to always stand to protect the life of his daughter. No responsible man on earth watches his daughter go down six feet when he has what it takes to save her life,” he added.
Part of the letter read: “Greetings from Nigeria, Enugu State precisely. Sir, my name is Martins Chiedozie Ugwu, former international president of All African Students For Peace And Development in Africa, former Country Representative of Students World Assembly, Secretary General of We The People Movement, Secretary General of Africa Thinkers Union and Director General of Enugu State Young Intellectuals For the Promotion of Good Governance, the very state, where Senator Ekweremadu comes from.
“We are not unaware of the grievous offence Senator Ike Ekweremadu committed according to the law of Great Britain, and the weighty consequences. Sir, having spent more than one year in custody, on behalf of the Enugu Young Intellectuals, we plead that you release him to come home and continue to carry on with his philanthropic and humanitarian projects, which cover hundreds of poor families, students and sick people in the hospitals whose treatment, feeding and school fees have been hampered and lives of these families and individuals shattered beyond imaginable proportion.
“Through IKEOHA FOUNDATION, which provides basic education and health needs of families living in poverty and below the radar of government-sponsored interventions, a lot of lives have been saved; peace and tranquility restored, and many inventors and leaders have been made. The progress and continuity of these success stories are now altered, as many will drop out of school. Many families will perish in hunger, and many will go back to the poverty level they had long departed from, especially those hundreds of individuals, families and groups under his direct payroll. The implication of this is likely high crime rate, vices and illegal and dangerous migration to better their lives.”
He, therefore, pleaded and appealed to the government of Great Britain to not just look at the position of the law of the United Kingdom but also to look at the pitiable and dangerous implications of his continuous detention in the UK on the lives of those helpless, poor and talented individuals, whose future, happiness and peace are dependent on Ekweremadu.