Nigerian-American professor and author, Farooq Kperogi has taken to his verified Facebook profile to clear the air on rumours surrounding the arrest of a Nigerian lawmaker, Ike Ekweremadu.
Okay.ng recalls that the former Deputy Senate President was on Thursday charged alongside his wife for organ harvesting.
Many Nigerians have condemned the act.
Prof. Kperogi had said:
“Organ harvesting doesn’t mean killing someone and selling their body parts for “money” or other kinds of “ritual.”
“It’s a term for surgically removing a body organ, such as a kidney, from a healthy person who can live without it and transplanting it to the body of someone who is in danger of dying without it.
“It’s a crime in the UK and elsewhere if this is done without the consent of the organ donor.
“Ekweremadu’s child needs an organ to survive, and he is alleged to have brought in a donor from Nigeria whose consent he and his wife didn’t seek.
He noted that contrary to what people are saying on social media, he didn’t plan on killing the child and harvesting his body parts for ritual.
He added that “some Naija people no go kill pesin with their atavistic thinking. Everything is “ritual sacrifice”.
Farooq Kperogi is a Nigerian-American professor, author, media scholar, newspaper columnist, blogger and activist. He was a reporter and news editor at many Nigerian newspapers including the Daily Trust, Daily Triumph and the now defunct New Nigerian.