How Kano kids were kidnapped, sold in Anambra – Police
The Kano State Police Command has arrested eight suspects involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of nine children.
The victims have been reunited with their relatives.
The children, aged between two and 10 years, were kidnapped from various locations within the state capital and trafficked in Anambra State.
The Commissioner of Police in the state, Ahmed Iliyasu, who handed the kids to their relatives, said some of them were abducted in 2014.
Eight suspects were arrested in connection with the alleged kidnapping and trafficking of the children.
Parading the suspects at the command’s headquarters, Iliyasu said one Sagir Mohammed Bako had alerted them about the mysterious disappearance of children from neighbourhoods across the state capital.
According to him, the ring leader, Paul Onwe and his wife, Mercy while moving one of their kidnapped victims, Haruna Sagir Bako, to Onisha.
The police chief stated that Bako was kidnapped on September 11, 2019, on his way home from Islamiyya School at Yankaba quarters, of the state capital.
He added that the suspects’ confessions during interrogation led the command to extend its investigation to Anambra State where eight other trafficked children were sold.
Ten-year-old Farouq, renamed Onyedikabo Ogbodo, shared his experience:
“When Paul brought me to Onitsha, there was a man called Emma. I saw
this one (pointing at one of the victims). There is another one that has gone. They were playing and Emma bought me Cheese balls before
Aunty Ebere came and took me up and later took me to the hospital.
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Farooq, who could not recall the name of his biological father, said he was in Basic 4 in a primary school in Onitsha.
Iliyasu said, “The suspects confessed to have conspired among themselves and kidnapped various children from areas like Sauna,
Kwanar Jaba, Kawo, Hotoro, Yankaba and Dakata quarters, all within the Kano metropolis.’’
Among the suspects paraded for kidnapping and trafficking of children were Onwe, Mercy, Emmanuel Igwe, Ebere Ogbodo, Louisa Duru and Monica Orachaa.
Onwe told journalists that he had made over N2 million kidnapping seven children and taking them to Anambra in the last five years.
Each child he abducted, he claimed, was sold for N200,000.
Onwe said the kids were sold to Ebere Ogbodo.
The suspect, who hails from Ebonyi State, has lived in Kano since 1998.
He told the journalists at the parade that Igwe introduced him to kidnapping.
“This man (pointing at Igwe) introduced me to kidnapping. He told me that Madam Ebere Ogbodo, who was a restaurateur, needed a child
because she didn’t have any.
“Subsequently, I told my madam and she started searching.
“The children I kidnapped were seven. For the first one, who was two years old then, she gave me N150,000. I took that one from Brigade,
Kwanar Jaba side.”
Speaking, Ogbodo said, “I am a childless woman from Enugu State. I was crying because my husband sent me out when I met Emma and I told him about my problem. He said he had a brother whose wife was working in a motherless babies’ home.
“He connected Paul to me and he told me that the children were brought from a motherless babies’ home. I put them in school. I bought two of
them for N200,000.”
