Ojo Abefe has been detained by NAPTIP’s (National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters) Ekiti State command on suspicion of trafficking in children.
The suspect, a native of Ada in Oroade Local Government Area of Osun State, is suspected of selling two females to prostitution agents in Mali, including a minor and a graduate of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti.
On Monday, September 25, 2023, the suspect was parading, and the Ekiti State Head of Operations for NAPTIP, Mr. Samson Oladimeji, confirmed that the suspect had been handed over to the organization by members of the NSCDC’s (Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps) Ekiti State anti-child trafficking unit.
Oladimeji lamented that the practice of human trafficking had spread throughout the state and needed to be stopped at all costs.
He confirmed that between January and September of last year, about eighteen suspects had been detained, while 23 victims had been saved from Libya, the Mall, Togo, and Burkina Faso.
He declared that as soon as the investigation into the matter was finished, the suspect, who is currently the subject of investigations at the agency’s Ado-Ekiti office, would be arraigned in court.
Oladimeji disclosed that numerous child trafficking victims were being perilously exposed to exploitation, prostitution, slavery, and other nefarious acts that frequently subject them to all manner of gruesome experiences, deaths, and untold sufferings.
The majority of the victims are school-aged children from underprivileged backgrounds, which, he continued, was the most pitiful aspect.
He issued a warning that those implicated in such immoral and illegal activities in the state will not be spared by the agency and will instead be subject to the full force of the law.
One of the victims who was saved, Oluwatosin Apata, described her ordeal, claiming Abefe sold her to an agent who tried to seduce her into prostitution.
Before being saved and sent back to Nigeria, she claimed to have spent four months in Mali.
