*This Generation Scares Me – Joe Igbokwe Berates Groom for Insensitivity To Parents’ Travail
*ThisDay Editor, Olaleye, Others, Mull Sacrifices We Make For Our Children
It is a sweet and seemly thing to imperil oneself for one’s children. The noblest act of sacrifice, however, pales into insignificance when the recipients repay it with discourtesy.
It was outright horror to watch Lloyd, the son of the former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, marry his heartthrob, Tiffany Adaobi Obinna-Uzor, in an elaborate wedding ceremony while his parents languish in prison, in the United Kingdom (UK).
Like the proverbial ninny – or simp if you like – who becomes slack and selfish in wedlock, Lloyd seems to have undergone a fatty degeneration of his moral being even before he tied the nuptial knots.
Thus his indifference to the predicament of his parents, former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, who were convicted by a London court of an attempt to harvest an organ for his ailing sister, Sonia.
Ekweremadu, 60, was served nine years and eight months, while his wife, Beatrice, 56, was handed four and six months.
In the end, the Ekweremadus and their doctor accomplice, Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty. The jury found that they conspired to bring the 21-year-old at the centre of the matter, David Nwamini, to London to exploit him for his kidney, after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey. According to the UK Guardian, it is the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
They were alleged to have attempted to convince doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in London to perform an £80,000 transplant on the donor who was presented as Sonia’s cousin. However, during the trial, the couple apologised for claiming that the donor was a relative.
The prosecutor said Ekweremadu, a lawyer and lawmaker, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact.”
Notwithstanding their parents’ plight, Lloyd married Tiffany in a glamourous wedding ceremony at the Basilica of Grace, Anglican Communion, Gudu District, Abuja, on Saturday with his siblings and the creme of Nigeria’s high society.
Recall that Sonia, Lloyd’s sister, was diagnosed with a kidney problem in 2019, and since then, there have been frantic efforts to get her a donor. The 25-year-old, on her part, pleaded “not guilty” to the charge levelled against her when she appeared again in court this year.
Sonia was, however, cleared of the charges.
While their parents’ conviction signposts a personal tragedy for the family, the unreflective children rolled out the drums and dressed themselves in silken garlands as they painted the town red in celebration of Lloyd’s wedding.
Governors, Senators, and party chieftains among other heavyweights were at the wedding. Mortified by the glaring display of insensitivity to their parents’ predicament, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Joe Igbokwe has slammed Lloyd for having an elaborate wedding ceremony while his parents are serving prison terms in the United Kingdom.
Igbokwe said the former Senator’s son should have held a very-low-budget wedding, and celebrate big when their parents are freed.
Recalling their ordeal vis-a-vis their son’s wedding ceremony, the APC chieftain said, “If I were to be Ekweremmadu’s son I would not have staged this elaborate wedding ceremony with my father and mother in prison.”
“I would have done a low-key marriage ceremony and waited till my parents were free. This generation scares me stiff.”
Similarly, ThisDay Editor, Olawale Olaleye commented on the issue in a social media post. “I know that at the end of the day, life continues. But God forbid if my father was in prison, how on earth would I have gone ahead to wed at all let alone have an elaborate one, when indeed he is where he is today because he was running around to save one of us?”
“What it means is that if it was the boy, who just wedded that was in a similar condition, Senator Ike Ekweremadu could have done the same thing or even more, thinking this is the scion of the family, and must survive me. It does not matter whether or not my father gave his consent to the wedding. Truth is, he could have done so under pressure, seeing that his son was unthinking and overly emotional about it.
“For me, it speaks more to the son’s capacity to think and make hard choices. I would never have approached my father at all for it, and it’s the most sensible and decent thing to do, knowing his emotional state. The same thing, I’d say, applies to the family of the bride and their daughter. Zero empathy! Is it that kids these days are raised without empathy at all, or it is the westernisation of their thought process?
“Imagine making a move that completely altered the cause of your life because of your kids and the same children are living their lives regardless, saying life goes on? After all, Daddy made his choice. They might have concluded. I know this is a very sensitive topic, and many people would rather it was left unaddressed. But I feel some type of way as a father, and it really got me thinking about the sacrifices we make for our children.”
