Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi, the Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), urged all Zonal and State Commanders of the Agency nationwide to boost surveillance activities in their jurisdictions to hunt down child/human traffickers on Monday in Abuja.
Waziri-directive Azi’s is contained in a statement issued on Monday by Stella Nezan, NAPTIP’s Head of Press and Public Relations, headlined “NAPTIP DG directs commanders to go after child traffickers.”
According to the statement, the DG also directed that all homes where buying and selling of babies are suspected to be going on (also known as baby factories) are detected, shut down and the operators apprehended for prosecution.
She tasked Zonal and State Commanders to liaise with sister law enforcement agencies within their areas of operation for joint actions to stem the tide of child abduction, trafficking and buying and selling of children.
Citing Saturday’s incident in the Sangotedo area of Lagos State where a dispatch rider allegedly had a child in his dispatch box allegedly meant to be delivered to someone, she said that such cases should not be allowed to fester in Nigeria.
The Lagos State Police Command had on Monday clarified that the dispatch rider, Williams Tadule, was not kidnaping the child; and the child was not in the delivery box as purported.
Updating the public on the incident, the Lagos police spokesperson, Adekunle Ajisebutu, in a statement on Monday, said the mother of the baby, Lovina Bitrus, disclosed that the dispatch rider carried the child on his motorbike with her consent.
Ajisebutu said the mother allowed the rider to carry the child to pacify him for crying, adding that the child was not found inside a delivery box as alleged by the mob.
However, the NAPTIP Chief insisted that such incidences are not impossible because “We have already rescued many of such children over the years, traced the parents and reunited the children with them while prosecuting those involved.
“But we must do more as the crime is not abetting. Every day, the criminals are devising new strategies and we must collaborate with other sister law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders including members of the public so that we can get ahead of this national crisis.”
She noted that in the last year, the Agency rescued at least 30 babies from criminal elements, traced the parents and reunited the babies with them while those arrested were facing prosecution in different courts across the country for Child Trafficking.
“These criminal elements do not mean well for the children and their parents. What drives them is the money they make from such sales while the agony of such parents and what becomes of the children do not matter to them. There is currently an entire value chain for the buying and selling of children in Nigeria,” she added.
The Associate Professor of Law also called on members of the public to be vigilant to the happenings within their environment as the criminals involved in the abduction and trafficking of the children are not strangers but people they know.
She advised law enforcement agencies to make themselves trustworthy before the people so that the members of the public could have the confidence to share information and intelligence with them.
According to her, “We are not saying that the members of the public should take the law into their hands by going after the criminals but rather, they should share intelligence with relevant agencies.
“If the members of the public are not sure that you will protect their identities or bring the criminals before the law, they will not come to you.”