By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja
Kogi State command of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), has arrested one Matthew Joseph, who allegedly specialises in trafficking underage children from Kaduna to Kogi State.
Ahmad Gandi, Kogi State Commandant of the Corps disclosed this on Thursday in Lokoja while parading the suspect along two others who allegedly committed culpable homicide and sundry offences.
Gandi said the command working on a credible information, tracked the trafficker and arrested him adding that he gave useful information which led to the recovery of 32 children whose age ranged between five and 16 years.
He said that the children were distributed to 22 foster Guardians as house helps to do domestic chores under the pretext that the guardians would in turn, send them to schools.
The NSCDC Commandant hinted that the children and their 22 foster parents had been investigated and profiled, adding that the children were released back to the foster guardians with the bond to produce them on demand.
He assured that the trafficker would be handed over to the appropriate authority for prosecution, saying that the act was illegal.
Gandi said that further investigation revealed that the parents of the minors willingly released them to come to Kogi out of ignorance.
Speaking shortly after the parade, Hajia Fatima Buba, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs, said the children would be repatriated back to Kaduna State through the Ministry of Women Affairs.
Represented by Mrs Hajarat Amin, an Official at the Ministry’s Child Department, the commissioner commended the NSCDC for doing a wonderful job in tackling child trafficking in the state.
The suspect, Matthew Joseph, told journalists that he was only assisting the children to get education since most of them were indigent apart from being displaced by bandit attacks in Kaduna.
Joseph described the children as his relations whom he had to assist from IDP camps in Kaduna with the aim of giving them opportunity to acquire education and a future in Kogi.
“Our communities were burnt down by herdsmen. They killed our parents and we ran away to IDP camps and I decided to help the children by bringing them to Lokoja free of charge to give them education”, he said.
In same vein, the Kogi Command of the NSCDC also paraded two robbery suspects arrested over alleged criminal conspiracy, robbery, attempted homicide, receiving stolen property and cheating.
He said that the suspects, Yakubu Abubakar, Ishaka Suleiman and Hameed (at large) sometimes in March 2023, criminally conspired and using dangerous weapon robbed one Musa Zakari of his motorcycle, two phones and large sum of money.
The commandant said the victim was robbed by the suspects at KM-18 Ajaokuta road in Kogi, where he was badly injured on his head with intention of killing him but was later revived at the hospital.
Gandi said that the victim reported the case and the suspects were subsequently tracked to Igbemo in Ekiti State where Abubakar was arrested while Ishaka Suleiman was later arrested at Ihima in Kogi with Hameed, still on the run.
