The lawsuit filed by a victim of illicit organ harvesting has been postponed until February 19, 2024, so that a hearing can take place, according to the FCT High Court.
In order to give the parties time to get ready for the hearing, Justice Abdullahi Aminu postponed the lawsuit on Monday.
Salaudeen Saliman Adedoyin, the victim’s 16-year-old father, filed a lawsuit against Alliance Hospital and Services Ltd., Dr. Aremu Abayomi Adeniran, and Dr. Christopher Otabor.
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The Daily Trust’s report, which implicated Alliance Hospital in an organ harvesting ring, led to the filing of the lawsuit.
C. J. Dimgba, the defence attorney, told the court during the hearing that he had just received the defense’s brief and had not yet had a chance to review the case file.
In order to give himself time to get ready for the hearing, he begged for a postponement.
Legal Aid’s Counsel Attorney E. M. Kolawole, who initiated the case, did not raise any objections to the postponement.
On September 9, the Legal Aid Council filed a lawsuit seeking a judgement of N500 million in general damages for Adedoyin’s son’s right kidney’s erroneous and illegal harvesting and removal.
An additional N200 million in general damages for the Adedoyins’ agony, pain, and mental, psychological, and emotional devastation.
Adedoyin’s son said that he met Emmanuel Melody on February 9, 2023, and that Melody offered to assist him in getting a job at Alliance Hospital in Masaka, Nasarawa State.
He described how, in the process of landing the job, Melody and other hospital employees forced him to sign an electronic affidavit in court without giving it a careful read, and they performed an X-ray on him on the day he was meant to take his JAMB exam.
He claimed that on September 17, he was forced to spend the night in the hospital and was forced to sign a contract without first reading it.
He also said that that evening, Dr. Aremu told him that he would be having kidney transplant surgery.
“Resisting but already too weak to move, he lost consciousness in the course of his resistance,” the man claimed.
Its defamatory campaign against Hospital
In the meantime, Alliance Hospital’s management responded to the Daily Trust revelation on organ harvesting, calling it a defamatory campaign against the facility.
“The writer of the article took a position against the hospital, pronounced a guilty verdict on it, and called for punishment for the hospital without due regard to the facts,” stated in a statement from the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Otabor C.U. Fwa.
“I urge the Daily Trust newspaper to delve further to identify the main participants in this transaction. Illegal organ harvesting is unrelated to Alliance Hospital.
“We have given our lawyers instructions to write the Daily Trust newspaper to withdraw the defamatory article against Alliance Hospital within a certain amount of time, or else we will take legal action in the interim.”
Naziru Mikailu, the Executive Director of Digital and Editorial at Daily Trust, disputed the hospital’s assertion, stating that the report was founded on the results of a meticulously carried out three-month study. So we continue to stick by our narrative.
