From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has received 231 victims of human trafficking who were rescued from Ghana.
NAPTIP, in a statement, on Friday, explained that the victims were rescued by Ghanian Authorities through its Economic and Organized Crimes Office (EOCO) in partnership the Agency, and were handed over to NAPTIP Lagos Command Office, Ikeja.
NAPTIP stated that the Executive Director of the Economic and Organized Crimes Office, Ghana, Abdulai Bashiru Dapilah, had earlier notified NAPTIP through a letter of the activities of a gang of people suspected to be Nigerians who were engaged in human trafficking and prohibited cybercrimes and related activities within Kumasi at Oyanfa, a subburb of Accra, Ghana.
Dapilah in the letter noted that out of approximately 50 houses in Kumsark Estate at Oyarifa, about 30 are occupied by the traffickers and their victims, adding that the victims are mainly young men, some of whom are minors.
He stated that on Thursday April 17th, 2025, the Office conducted a search operation within the Kumsark Estate during which 20 houses were searched, and a total of 231 Nigerians nationals were found comprising 227 males and four females with age ranging from 15 to 18 years.
The NAPTIP boss, in her remarks, promised to scale up collaboration with state and non-state actors within the West African corridors with a view to arrest and prosecute and dismantle the human trafficking sindicate operating within the region.
Represented by the Lagos State Commander of NAPTIP, Mrs. Comfort Agboko, the NAPTIP Boss disclosed that while a good number of the victims where trafficked for sexual exploitation, some of them were decieved, recruited and trafficked to Ghana and forced into cybercrimes.
She said, “ We are seriuosly distrubed by the latest development which is gradually making Ghana and other neighbuoring countries, an epicenter of trafficking precisely cybercrime and other exploitation.
“We have commenced discussion with some of other law enforcment Agencies in Ghana, Cote D’ Iviore, Mali, Ivory Coast, The Gambia and other Countries within the African corridor, to restrategize and dismatle the emerging organizsed criminal gangs wthin the areas.
“This also involve a review of some of the existing Memoradum of Understanding (MoU), bilateral agremment and other legal instruments with a view to ensuring synergy and collateral response.
“We shall commence the profiling of these returnees to ascertain their medical needs, their health status, the required skills and other basic varriable in order to render to them victim support cares and prost trauma services.
“At the same time, the suspects among them shall be throughly investigated and prosecuted in line with the provisions of the trafficking in persons (Prohibition) law enforcement and adminstration Act 2003 as re-enacted in 2015.”
She thanked the EOCO Ghana and other partners as well as the Nigeria Disapora Commission, Nigeria Immigration Service, the Federal ministry of Foreign Affairs and other partners for the support, assuring the suspect shall made to face the wrath of the law.