The Niger State Government has received 21 children from the Magama Local Government Area of the state who were rescued from a syndicate of human traffickers.
The Deputy Governor of Niger State, Yakuba Garba, disclosed this during a press briefing in his office on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, when he received the victims on behalf of the state government.
Comrade Yakuba explained that the children were intercepted in Gaidam, Yobe State, en route to Cameroon, Mali, and Niger Republic, adding that they were all young boys with an average age of 10 and below.
The Deputy Governor added, โHuman trafficking denigrates human dignity. It is a crime that strips away our common ideals of brotherhood. It destroys the fabric of our society and undermines the governmentโs creed of protecting all citizens against trafficking, violence, oppression, injustice, and other forms of vices.โ He noted that human trafficking contravenes Section 34(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which provides that every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person, and accordingly, no person shall be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment, or held in slavery or servitude, or required to perform forced or compulsory labour.โ
He stressed that the heinous crime is a classic example of manโs inhumanity to man, pointing out that the victims are subjected to hard labour, prostitution, organ harvesting, and, in some cases, are reduced to guinea pigs for laboratory experiments.
According to him, Section 13 of the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015, provides that all acts of human trafficking are prohibited in Nigeria.
He also emphasised that the giant strides of Governor Bago in taming the tide of terrorism shall not be hindered by elements that are hell-bent on turning back the clock. While poverty and the search for greener pastures have been identified as the major baits in luring the victims by the perpetrators, he said the government of Umaru Mohammed Bago has been deliberate in addressing these factors through employment opportunities and poverty alleviation policies.
The Deputy Governor stated that the government shall be decisive in its approach and ensure the restoration of peace and human dignity.
He said that the state government appreciated the Federal Government and its agencies, particularly the Security Agencies and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), for their effort in the arrest of the suspects who perpetrated this crime and the subsequent profiling and return of the victims to Niger State.
Responding, one of the parents of the rescued children, Jamilu Usman, who identified two of his children, Umar Jamilu (6 years) and Maruf Jamilu (5 years), noted that Malam Abubakar is a well-known person to them who studied in the Niger Republic.
He revealed that they gave authority for their children to go with Malam Abubakar to the Niger Republic to acquire Islamic knowledge, adding that he is the headmaster of Tungan Gari Primary School in Magama Local Government Area with four wives and 30 children, and will retire from service in the next five years. (Guardian)