At a sentencing hearing on Friday, May 5, 2023, Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President and ranking Senator, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice, were jailed for 10 and 6 years respectively.
Dr Obinna Obeta, the medical middleman, received a 10-year prison term as well.
All three were found guilty at the Old Bailey in March for arranging or facilitating the travel of a 21-year-old to the United Kingdom, in a bid to harvest his kidney on behalf of the Ekwemeradus’ sick daughter, Sonia.
It was the first such sentencing under the UK’s novel Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Appeals from eminent Nigerians
After they were found guilty, various eminent Nigerians like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senate President Ahmad Lawan, Speaker of the House Femi Gbajabiamila and the entire Nigerian parliament, pleaded for mercy or clemency for the Ekweremadus.
Obasanjo’s letter was written to the Chief Clerk of the Central Criminal Court in London, wherein he pleaded “for justice to be tempered with mercy” before the sentencing.
Obasanjo also cited the “very warm relations between the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” while asking the Clerk “to intervene and appeal to the court and the government of the United Kingdom to be magnanimous enough.”
The House of Representatives and Senate in Nigeria have also pleaded for clemency from the UK government on this case.
A former British colony, Nigeria continues to maintain close cultural and diplomatic ties with the UK; and an appeal from one of the governments to the other on this case could prove helpful for the Ekweremadus in the short term.
But can the King do anything?
A request for pardon has to come from an authority like the Federal Government of Nigeria, in order to move the needle.
Other well-meaning and recognised institutions or persons in the UK and abroad, can also make the appeal.
The King’s power to act on the appeals is called The Royal Prerogative of Mercy.
In English and British tradition, the Royal Prerogative of Mercy is one of the historic royal prerogatives of the British monarch, by which they can grant pardons (informally known as a royal pardon) to convicted persons.
This has officially been a power vested in the monarch in the Commonwealth realm. And Nigeria is one of the 56-member Commonwealth nations.
Has the British monarchy ever dispensed this prerogative?
Yes, it has. There really is some precedence here.
The prerogative has been wielded to the benefit of convicted persons by forebears of King Charles III who was crowned last Saturday, namely King George I and Queen Elizabeth II.
Below are some instances where the Prerogative of Mercy has been dispensed by the British monarchy:
• In 1717, King George I’s Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates was issued, promising a general pardon to those pirates who surrendered to the authorities.
• In 2001, two inmates at HMP Prescoed, South Wales, received early release under the Prerogative of Mercy as a reward for saving the life of the manager of the prison farm when he was attacked and gored by a captive wild boar.
• In 2013, a posthumous pardon was awarded to Alan Turing under the Prerogative of Mercy.
Wartime codebreaker Turing, had been convicted in 1952 of gross indecency for a consensual homosexual relationship with an adult.
• In 2020, the royal Prerogative of Mercy was used to reduce the minimum tariff that must be served before Steven Gallant could be considered for release on parole.
Gallant, who was serving life imprisonment for murder, was granted this reduction in the sentence “in recognition of his exceptionally brave actions at Fishmongers’ Hall, which helped save people’s lives despite the tremendous risk to his own,” while confronting terrorist Usman Khan during the 2019 London Bridge attack.