Desperate Nigerians selling their kidneys abroad
By Editor V 18 hours 52 minutes ago Font size:

Samson Eghosa, 31, grew up in Benin, Edo State. As soon as he hit his teens,
a cousin sold the idea of ‘travelling out’ to him. After series of criminal acts, the duo raised enough money to head for Italy, where Eghosa faced the harsh reality there which included odd jobs, always being on the run from the law and pressure from home to send money which wasn’t regularly coming. After four years of ‘hustling’ on the back alleys of Rome, Eghosa was told by a South African acquaintance of a man who is a middle-man for kidney donor seekers. A meeting was immediately set up by Eghosa’s South African acquaintance with the middle-man in a restaurant, where in an atmosphere he describes as routine, a direct offer was made to him. “The man just flat-out made an offer to me,” wrote Eghosa to Weekly Trust in an e-mail. “He offered the equivalent of about $10, 000.00 so I agreed.” The man Eghosa describes as having a professional mien now proceeded to lay out the risk involved in the operation. But there was no real need for him to do so because Eghosa’s desperation and need for the cash involved has made him quite willing to face death if need be. “I didn’t care,” he says.  “I had a lot of things to take care of in Nigeria and the money would come in really handy. So I agreed. A date was set and we met again with the middle-man and the South African (who collected some commission from the middle man).” Eghosa says he was taken to a hospital-like place which could
just be an improvised facility that will enable the operation to take out his kidney go on successfully. But reality began to dawn upon him when after
the operation, as he says, “I wasn’t really looked after during recovery time. Some weeks later and my stitches were still painful. The worst aspect of it all was when I sent half of the money home, an uncle of mine who was to collect it and take to my mother absconded with the cash. He still hasn’t been heard from. The remaining is still with me.” That was four months ago. Now, he says, “I fall very sick every now and then, but I hear it might not be connected to my operation. I’m currently doing jobs like crazy so I’ll be able to go back home.” Eghosa is one of many Nigerians who are giving out their kidneys to those in desperate need, though not for humanitarian reasons but for cash, fuelling business in the sale of human parts. Like the popular 419 which Nigerians have exported abroad and which foreigners have come to use as a brand to unfairly profile Nigerians, the sale of kidneys by desperate Nigerians is becoming another national export and a brand that threatens to further entrench the country’s image as full of money-seeking citizens with no scruples. Now, mostly in locations in Malaysia and India, Nigerians in droves, according to the estimate made by a source familiar with the trade, line up
to be tested in the hope that their kidneys would be deemed good enough to be donated to a sick person. . . . .