By Emmanuel Aziken

I recently heard the intriguing story from a frontline source of how a former Nigerian senator who strolled the country with a thick escort of security men was almost scandalized as he arrived London in a commercial plane many years ago.

As he arrived Heathrow, he got to know somehow that he was of interest to British security and that he was set to be picked after passing through immigration. He suddenly turned cold with fright. As several other passengers deplaned, this senator remained stuck to his seat and somehow got word to the High Commission.

It was a far cry from the swagger he displayed in Nigeria where he carried about with an obscene grandeur both in material wealth and lascivious inclinations. The High Commission detailed the resident Intelligence official who happened to be an army officer who later came to national prominence to bring him out.

The story of how he was brought out from the plane and the bravado of that army officer and how he saved the senator and Nigeria from international embarrassment is one of the finest and intriguing success stories of Nigerian diplomacy in the years of yore.

That was well before the present Senate sank the institution to its lowest esteem in the eyes of right thinking Nigerians. Of course few would be shocked at the subjugation and near irrelevance of the Senate, a body that should ordinarily be classed as the most preeminent gathering of men and women in Nigeria.

In the United States it is regarded as the most exclusive club in that country. United States presidents have been known to take out time to woo individual senators to their side on issues. But not here, where Senators genuflect even before ministers.

Indeed, only few would imagine the unimaginative capitulation of the legislative body in  the circumstances that have befallen Senator Ike Ekweremadu.

Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, the Senate has carried on as if the Enugu West Senate Constituency seat does not exist.

Ekweremadu was arrested last June on the accusation of organ harvesting in the United Kingdom. Prior to the arrest, Ekweremadu had written to the British High Commission last December to provide cover for the visa application of one David Nwamini to travel to the UK for medical examination for the purpose of organ donation to his ailing daughter.

Now, some have said that the recent tightening of the laws on organ donation prohibit cases of commercial harvesting of organs and that Ekweremadu may have fallen victim of the new law.

How the nuances of the law as they apply to the specific case of the Ekweremadus are still to be determined by the courts. But what is clear is that no law breaker writes to the authorities of his intention to break the law.

Ekweremadu wrote to the High Commission of his intentions, albeit without any hint of a commercial transaction being involved.

It is appalling that the visa process went through and Nwamini was granted a visa to go to Britain for the purpose of medical examination. He did go through the medical examination and as it turned out he was ineligible for donation.

Ekweremadu in wanting to hold on to his credibility wanted to bring Nwamini back to Nigeria and that was where the story changed. The 21 year old man turned into a boy that claimed to be under persecution.

It will be intriguing that the Nigerian Intelligence Service in the UK was ignorant of the fate of the Ekweremadus in the first 24 hours after his arrest, well before the news leaked out. That was the time that action should have been taken.

It is not as if the president of Nigeria has been limited from wriggling his citizens out of foreign jails. President Muhammadu Buhari did it for Miss Zainab Aliyu who was travelling with her family when drugs were reportedly laced into her luggage. She was freed according to Abike Dabiri-Erewa after the case was brought to the notice of President Buhari who promptly intervened and she was set free.

However, for Ekweremadu it seems as if there is no one within the presidential palace that could take his case to the president. The reason for such a rebuff is simple.

Your correspondent is very much aware of the high level intimidation and coercion that were directed to make Ekweremadu defect in the first two years of the APC administration. A senior administration official told this correspondent that Ekweremadu was going to defect. Months after when I asked Ekweremadu he poohpoohed the issue apparently having rejected the idea.

A prominent vocal man in the Bola Tinubu campaign reached him. When he refused, Okoi Obono-Obla, the same man indicted for certificate forgery using his powers in an anti-corruption panel turned the whip on him.

Besides the trial with Senator Bukola Saraki over the alleged forgery of the Senate Rule Book he was also brought to court for one malfeasance or the other. In all cases he won. Two times a list of properties alleged to be his, some with duplicated addresses were circulated for confiscation and Ekweremadu prevailed in the courts.

Of course, there were some associates of Ekweremadu who seeing what turned out to be the betrayal of his party, PDP urged him to defect. But he held on unlike Senator Godswill Akpabio who caved in and somersaulted.

It was as such appalling that in the face of his difficult life challenges stirred by a father’s move to save the life of his ailing daughter that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC revisited the assets confiscation issue that the government had twice lost.

With a man’s hand tied behind his back the Nigerian government is now lashing Ekweremadu. What a pity the Senate, a body he beautified with his legislative delivery in pretence has turned mute. What a shame.