Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, started giving back to society while waiting to be charged for “facilitating and arranging travel with the aim of exploiting “a 21-year old”, a former inmate, Mr. X, has told our reporter.
He described him as a “simple and nice man.” The Nigerian-born X, however, said he had never heard of the Senator before both met at the His Majesty’s Prison.
Ekweremadu, who was sentenced with his wife, Beatrice, and Dr. Obinna Obeta at the Old Bailey last week Friday, got support from people he had helped in the past, the former prisoner disclosed.
Speaking with The Guardian inside the Caffè Nero shop opposite Courtroom 1, where the Senator was slammed with over nine years jail term on the day of the sentencing, X said he was at Wandsworth Prison when Ekweremadu was brought there in June last year, after he and his wife were arrested on arrival at Heathrow Airport on June 21.
“He was always having a lot of letters,” he said. Asked if the letters were written by the Senator and how he came about them, the former inmate replied with a “no,” adding, “People were writing him from Nigeria.
Those he had helped before.”
X, who has regained his freedom since late September, after a Southwark Crown Court jury pronounced a “not guilty” verdict on him, also said the Senator read the Bible a lot and prayed during his time Wandsworth.
Giving a glowing reference for the former deputy senate president, X disclosed that, “he was lecturing. He was teaching a lot of Eastern Europeans English.”
Ekweremadu was later moved to Belmarsh before his trial started at the Old Bailey on January 31. (The Guardian)
