A 43 year old fake nurse, Uju Okonkwo, now in police net in Asaba, Delta
State, has reportedly sold a three month old baby to a Lagos-based
businessman for N500,000. Also a fake lawyer, Ezurum Joseph, who
claimed to have graduated from the Nnamdi Azikwe University (NAU),
Anambra State, in 2011 with registration number 39017, was arrested
along with Okonkwo.
Over the years, Joseph has provided the
hideouts where Okonkwo was using to harbour her victims and has stood as
the woman’s solicitor.
The said fake lawyer confessed that he
dropped out of school after he could not pass four courses, which
prevented him from attending Law School. However, Joseph has since been
defrauding unsuspecting members of the public.
Three female human
trafficking victims, Chinyere Ude (19 ), Happiness Igwe (20 ) and
Esther Frank (17 ), who were respectively in their advanced stages of
pregnancy, were rescued from the traffickers’ den.
The girls
disclosed that they were brought to the hideout by Okonkwo, a widow, who
claimed to have worked at Chinonso Hospital, Nkpor in Anambra State,
for the purpose of selling their babies after delivery.
Men of
the Special Anti- Kidnapping Squad (SAKS) raided the hideout on Okpanam
Road in Oshimili North Local Government Area of the state, after a
tipoff that the three girls had been kept there and would soon deliver
while their babies would be sold to the highest bidders.
The
state Commissioner of Police, Zanna Ibrahim, who paraded the suspects
with the pregnant girls in Asaba, said Okonkwo was nabbed after an
intensive surveillance by his men. Gnashing her teeth on the parade
ground, Okonkwo, who said she had no registered name for her
organisation and had been in the game with the lawyer for over one year,
confessed that she sold a baby for N500,000 to a Lagos - based
businessman.
Ibrahim described the suspects as human traffickers.
He said: “The matter before us is a complete case of human trafficking
and other related offences. Only God knows how many innocent children
they have sold into slavery, to unknown persons for money rituals.
“The
suspects have started helping us in our investigations. ” The
commissioner said the war against crimes must be won “to stop careless
wastage of lives and property ”. Appealing to parents and guardians to
be alive to their responsibilities in providing proper guidance to their
children and wards, Ibrahim said the suspects would soon be arraigned.