Child Trafficking: DSS Nabs Three Pastors

Department of State Security Services (DSS) has apprehended three men of God and a woman for running a gang that specializes in child trafficking ,and thereafter, rescued 36 children.
The suspects’ name were given as:  Dauda Nurugada, 32, from Kebbi State; Anthony Onwebeyi, 53, from Anambra State; Benaalim Isa-Garba, 43, from Kaduna State, and Mrs Tombra Alazigha, 38, a school proprietor.
Parading them before journalists in their Office along Captain Amangala Street, Yenagoa, the Assistant Director of the command, Mr. Friday Onuche, said the children were rescued from homes in Yenagoa and Kaiama in Bayelsa State, Enugu-Agidi in Anambra State, and Port-Harcourt in Rivers State.
According to him, the kingpins operated under the guise of missionaries and Non-Governmental Organisations  (NGOs), and target vulnerable children largely from the northern part of the country.
Among the places targeted by the traffickers, he said, include Zuru ethnic group in Kebbi and Zamfara states and Zaria in Kaduna State, where they approach poor parents to allow them send their children to school.
Onuche said the children, rather than go to school as promised, ended up as house-helps or hawkers.
He said: “There is the need, therefore, for members of the public to be sensitised on the need to be circumspect in the way they give their children or take in children from such unsuspecting modern slave traders.
“Pastor Anthony Onwebeyi, one of the accused, told journalists that he was not a trafficker but a missionary assisting children to get back to school.
He said he only collected some small amount of money as transport fares from those who got custody of the kids.
One of the kids said when he was taken away from his parents, he was promised education but on arrival, his madam made him to be hawker of pure water and other edibles.