Justice Abdullahi Aminu of the FCT High Court, on Monday, adjourned the suit seeking damages for a victim of illegal organ harvesting till February 19, 2024, for a hearing.
The suit was brought by Salaudeen Saliman Adedoyin, father of the 16-year-old victim, against Dr Aremu Abayomi Adeniran, Dr. Christopher Otabor, and Alliance Hospital and Services Ltd.
The adjournment, Justice Aminu said, was to enable the all parties to prepare for the hearing.
At the hearing, defence counsel, C. J. Dimgba, informed the court that he was just briefed by the defence and was yet to study the case file.
He therefore pleaded for an adjournment to enable him to prepare for the hearing.
Counsel to the Legal Aid Counsel, who brought the matter to court, E. M. Kolawole, did not object to the adjournment.
The Legal Aid Council had filed the suit on September 9 seeking the award of the sum of N500 million in general damages for wrongful and unlawful harvesting and removal of the right kidney of Adedoyin’s son.
Another sum of N200 million in general damages for the pain, suffering, anguish, and emotional, psychological, and mental trauma suffered by the Adedoyins.
Adedoyin’s son had averred that sometime on February 9, 2023, he was introduced to one Emmanuel Melody who offered to help him secure employment with the hospital, Alliance Hospital in Masaka, Nasarawa State.
He narrated how in the course of securing the job, Melody and other staff of the hospital made him sign an electronic affidavit in court, without reading it and X-ray on him on a day he was supposed to go for his JAMB capturing.
He said on September 17, he was made to sleep over in the hospital, and in the middle of the night, made to sign a document without reading it.
He further averred that Dr Aremu later informed him that night that a kidney transplant surgery was to be conducted on him.
He said he “resisted but was already too weak to move and he lost consciousness in the course of his resistance.”
Leading reporters reports that the case was instituted following a Daily Trust investigation that uncovered an organ harvesting syndicate and implicated Alliance Hospital.
Meanwhile, the management of Alliance Hospital has described the report as a campaign of calumny against the hospital.