The father of Ukpo Nwamini David, the young man at the centre of the internationally publicised organ harvesting case involving Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has sadly passed away, plunging the family into deep mourning.
According to close family sources, the elderly man reportedly died on Sunday afternoon, around 12 p.m., after battling prolonged illness and emotional distress believed to have been aggravated by the inability to see or communicate with his son since 2022. Relatives disclosed that the unresolved trauma and worry over David’s fate contributed greatly to his declining health.
Speaking in an emotional interview with DAILY POST on Monday morning, one of the deceased’s children, Boniface Nwamini Ukpo, confirmed the tragic news. He revealed that the family’s pain has been compounded by the complete lack of contact with David ever since the legal saga began, adding that the situation had weighed heavily on their father’s mind until his final moments.
“Yes, my father died yesterday. It’s very heartbreaking. Since the whole incident happened in 2022, we have not spoken with my brother, David Nwamini. My father had been sick ever since this whole saga started, and yesterday he finally passed away,” Boniface lamented.
The deeply controversial case that shook Nigeria and the UK began in 2022 when Senator Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and Nigerian medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, were arrested and later convicted by a London court for conspiring to arrange the travel of David from Lagos to the United Kingdom with the intent of illegally harvesting his kidney. The organ was allegedly meant for a transplant to save the life of the senator’s critically ill daughter.
In a landmark judgement delivered in May 2023, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison, making it the first conviction in the UK for the crime of illegal organ harvesting. His wife, Beatrice, received a four-year, six-month prison term, while Dr. Obinna Obeta, described as the middleman in the operation, was handed a 10-year jail sentence.
The passing of David’s father adds another tragic layer to an already painful and controversial story, leaving the family shattered and still yearning for reunion with the young man at the centre of one of Nigeria’s most talked-about criminal cases in rece
nt years.