By Nwamara Chekwube
A petty trader, Mrs Bridget Nzubechi, 28, has narrated how her six year old daughter, Grace Nzubechi was recovered two years after she was stolen and sold by a suspected trafficker.
Nzubechi a resident of Obizi Amakama in Umuahia South Local Government Area of Abia State, said that while Grace, whole was stolen on Dec. 26, 2019 along her sister had been recovered, the sister was still missing.
She said that the suspect identified as Oluchi who had earlier lived in their community for six months sold her victims for N200, 000 each.
She said that the suspect was then known to them as a prophetess.
“The suspect had lived in our community for about six months. She, however, relocated but suddenly return in December 2019.
According to Nzubechi, the suspect visited their home to sympathise with them on the death of her father in-law and her husband who was in police net.
“She further enquired how we have been faring and requested that I alongside two of my five children follow her to Umuahia, the state capital, to enable her get us food items.
“When we got to the city centre, precisely at Isi Gate, she gave me N4000 to go and buy food items and suggested that I leave the children with her.
“That was all I could remember because it was as if I lost my memory immediately I collected the money from her,” she said.
Nzubechi said that for her to return to normalcy, it took the intervention of a sister who saw her wondering aimlessly around the area and suspected that she was under a spell.
“When the sister saw me, she hit me severally according to her because I was not conscious of my environment. I suddenly regained consciousness and started looking for my two children and Oluchi,” she said.
She commended the joint efforts of officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and other stakeholders, including the State Ministry of Women Affairs for their professionalism that led to the recovery of Grace and arrest of Oluchi and her accomplice identified as ‘Nwanyi Police’.
She said Oluchi later confessed that she sold each of the children for N200, 000 to different people at Aba in Abia State and Onitsha in Anambra State.
Nzubechi, however, appealed that efforts be made to rescue her remaining child.
Meanwhile, an Umuahia-based Nongovernmental Organisation known as Public Enlightenment Project(PEP) has raised concern over rising cases of trafficking in persons in the country and South East region.
The Executive Director of PEP, Mrs Lillian Ezenwa, described the sale of Grace and her sister by their captors as a crime against humanity.
She said that it was sad that the suspect who presented herself as a concerned citizen ended up deceiving the mother of the children and made away with two of her children.
She said that such incidents had become endemic in the region, adding that the perpetrators had devised strategies which included engaging with people in an environment with a view to identifying weak families to attack.
“It took a combined team of PEP, NPFand other child’s right protection agencies one year and two months of intense work to track little Grace and reunite her with her mother,” she said.
Ezenwa, who noted that child’s protection laws were the panacea to incidences of child trafficking, advocatedfor societal reorientation.
He called for a synergy between all agencies involved in the protection of the rights of the child, including the NPF and orphanages.
