On Friday, a UK court sentenced Ike Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President, to over nine years in prison for organ trafficking.

But Ekweremadu is not the first Nigerian politician convicted by an overseas court.

FIJ delves into the number of times Nigerian politicians have been jailed outside of the country.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Ekweremadu Bags 10-Year Jail Term for Organ Trafficking

Findings showed that apart from Ekweremadu, three other Nigerian politicians have bagged jail terms in the UK and the US.

S/N	Name	Designation	Reason for Sentence	Year of Sentence	Jail term	Location
1	James Ibori	Ex-Governor of Delta State	Money laundering	2012	13 years	UK
2	Josephine Iyamu	Edo House of Assembly Aspirant	Human & sex trafficking	2018	18 years	UK
3	Abidemi Rufai	Senior Special Assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun	Fraud & identity theft	2022	5 years	US
4	Ike Ekweremadu	Former Deputy Senate President	Organ trafficking	2023	9 years & 6 months	UK

JAMES IBORI

In April 2012, a UK court convicted James Ibori, a former Governor of Delta State, of money laundering and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

Ibori was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to embezzling 50 million pounds in one of the biggest money laundering cases seen in Britain.

However, he only served four years out of the sentence, as he was released from jail in 2016.

JOSEPHINE IYAMU

Josephine Iyamu was the first British national to be convicted under the Modern Slavery Act for offences committed overseas.

Iyamu, who was once an Edo State House of Assembly aspirant, was convicted of sex trafficking by a US court in July 2018.

Reports revealed that she was found guilty of trafficking Nigerian women into Europe and forcing them into sex work.

Although she was initially sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, her sentence was later increased to 18 years.

READ ALSO: UK Police Arrest Nigerian Woman for ‘Killing’ Son Through Fasting

ABIDEMI RUFAI

Having been convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, Abidemi Rufai, a former senior special assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, bagged 5 years in September 2022.

According to a US court, Rufai confessed to a long history of using more than 20,000 stolen identities of Americans for cyber frauds.