A 36-year-old man identified as Kingsley Essien has been arrested for allegedly trafficking his wife to Mali for prostitution and selling her two-year-old son for N600,000.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, in a statement on Thursday, said the suspect was arrested following a report lodged at the Agbara divisional headquarters by the suspect’s wife, Bright Essien.
The PPRO said, “Bright reported that sometime in October 2021, her husband, Kingsley Essien, informed her that he had secured a job for her in Bamako Mali, and that he had assisted many people to that country for greener pastures before.
“She explained further that being her husband, she didn’t suspect any foul play until she got to Mali only to discover that she had been sold to a human trafficker cartel headed by a woman at the rate of N1,400,000.
“While in Mali, she was forced into prostitution, but later found her way to the Nigerian embassy in Bamako, where she was assisted back to Nigeria.
“On getting to Nigeria, she discovered that her two-year-old son in care of her husband was nowhere to be found.
“Upon the report, the DPO, Agbara division, SP Abiodun Salau, detailed detectives to go after the suspect, and he was eventually arrested.
“On interrogation, the suspect confessed to the crime; he confessed further that he sold the two-year-old son to somebody at the rate of N600,000.”
The police spokesman, however, said the state Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had ordered that the buyer of the son must be traced and arrested.
