•Security operatives smash human trafficking ring in Ebonyi, victims seek justice

From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo 

Ebonyi State has remained a ‘catchment area’ for human trafficking. Poverty and illiteracy are identified as the key drivers. Almost every other day, stories of victims of human trafficking rent the air. And, painfully, several of the victims always come from Ebonyi, Enugu and Cross River states where these people are promised ‘irresistible job offers.’

While many of the victims are forced into prostitution, some others lose their lives in the process. The victims, majorly girls, are usually trafficked to West African countries for sex slavery.

Recently, members of the Nigerian Forest Security Service (NFSS), Ebonyi State Command, bust a syndicate that ran the lucrative evil enterprise in the state. In the process, a 43-year-old mother of seven, Mrs. Monica Ominyi Agbo, accused of trafficking one Miss Faith Nwazunku to Ghana for prostitution, was apprehended on October 3. 

The 21-year-old victim, who narrated her ordeal, said she was introduced to the suspected trafficker by Mrs. Chiamaka Onyibe with the promise that she would be employed as a sales girl on a N500,000 monthly salary: “One day, Mrs. Chiamaka Onyibe approached me and promised to change my fortunes by introducing me to someone that would employ me as a sales girl where I would be receiving huge amounts of money monthly.

“Thereafter, I requested if she could inform my parents about it and the woman accepted, shortly after, I was taken to the prime suspect’s house at Nkaliki; she later took me to Lagos State.”

According her, she was taken to Ghana the following day, where she was handed over to a male hotel operator that forcefully pushed her into prostitution. She disclosed that she was remitting between N20,000 to N30,000 daily to her mistress.

Daily Sun gathered that she had spent four months in the illegal job and found out that she could not continue. It was at that point that she pleaded with the hotel manager who then funded her journey back to Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. On arrival in the state, she reported the matter to the NFSS.

The accomplice, Mrs. Onyibe, in her statement, said that she actually told the victim and her parents about the hotel job before introducing her to the prime suspect that later took Miss Nwazunku to Ghana: “Miss Nwanzunku had told me about her indebtedness to some people, so I introduced her to the woman at the back of Nkaliki Primary School, Abakaliki, so that she could be engaged and offset the money she borrowed. But before then I equally informed her parents.” 

Onyibe also confessed that she had earlier linked her own sister, Miss Nneka Ogbonna, to the prime suspect for the same business before the last one that exposed them: “Since I introduced my own sister to the woman, I have neither heard from her nor seen her and when I asked about her from Mrs. Monica, the woman brazenly told me that she had separated from my sister in Ghana.”

The principal suspect, Mrs. Monica Agbo, admitted to have taken her landlord’s daughter, Sandra Nwibo, Nneka Ogbonna and Faith Nwazunku to Ghana between January and April 2025, before she was arrested.

She insisted that the victim was told about the nature of the business before she embarked on the journey and attributed her action to hardship associated with the death of her husband.

Ebonyi State commander of Nigerian Forest Security Service, Mr. Larry Igwe, said the two suspects have been handed over to the Crack Squad at the Police Headquarters, Abakaliki, for further interrogation.   

Similarly, another victim of sex slavery from the state, Chinecherem Awuru, who was reportedly sold into prostitution by her former fiancé, Mr. Joshua Ekuma, is seeking justice for the maltreatment.

Awuru, an indigene of Ekka Community, Ezza North LGA, said she was lured into the relationship in 2020 by the man that impregnated and abandoned her.

According to her, after she gave birth to a baby girl, Ekuma later visited her home last year and appealed for reconciliation. Her broad-minded parents accepted his request without knowing that the heartless man with his cohorts had already concluded arrangements for her journey to Accra, Ghana, for prostitution: “After my parents had forgiven him, we left for Asaba, where he directed me to join his sister in Lagos who would introduce me to a better job but, surprisingly, as soon as I arrived Mazamaza Motor Park in April 2024, I was picked by another man that ushered me into a hotel room.

“While the journey was progressing, I was not worried because I did not envisage that the father of my child could harm me, until the following day when I found myself in Ghana, where I was forced to take an oath that would attract death, if I either ran away from the illegal business or exposed the act.”

The 25-year-old lady alleged that she was beaten mercilessly by the coordinator of the illicit business in Ghana, identified as Precious, over her initial uncooperative posture even after taking the oath. She was eventually subdued by the woman until around May this year, when help came from other Igbo people there that raised money for her journey back to Nigeria.

Awuru, whose health is deteriorating, accused her estranged lover of taking advantage of the poverty in her family. She said that the man has refused to take care of her medical bills as directed by the community leadership but, instead, was threatening her life for exposing his illicit business.

The hapless young lady appealed to the Ebonyi State government, relevant agencies and good-spirited individuals to ensure that she got justice.

The victim’s distraught father, Cletus Awuru, also seemed helpless: “I have been taking my daughter from one medical home to another since she returned but, instead of the man to be remorseful and bear the financial burden, he was threatening to wipe away my lineage, should anyone dare him.”

Attempts by Daily Sun to get reactions from Ekuma were not successful as the person that answered the call claimed to be “Mr. Daniels,” a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Department, Asaba, Delta State.

He said that Ekuma was in their custody for another offence: “The phone is in speak-out, so he’s hearing you. We arrested him for another offence but I will try to get more details from the lady to backup my case file.”