NAPTIP Refutes Abduction Claims, Confirms Rescue of 8 Stolen Children in Asaba

The Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Binta Adamu Bello, has denied allegations that its operatives abducted children during a June operation in Asaba, Delta State, stressing that the mission was a lawful rescue exercise.

At a media briefing on Friday in Abuja, Bello explained that the operation led to the rescue of eight children allegedly stolen from Kano State. She said misleading reports on social media had misrepresented the intervention as abduction.

According to her, the case originated in December 2022 after the Protection Against Abduction and Missing Children (PATAMOC) petitioned NAPTIP over rising incidents of child abduction in Kano. Investigations revealed that one Hauwa Abubakar from Gombe State, arrested by police, had sold 21 children to an associate, Nkechi Odlyne, who allegedly resold seven of them to Christopher Ogugua Nwoye, proprietor of Happy Home Orphanage in Asaba, at ₦450,000 each.

Bello disclosed that four of the recovered children had already been identified by their biological parents in Gombe and Kano, including a girl, Aisha Buhari, whose case had been widely circulated by PATAMOC. To secure her rescue, NAPTIP operatives, supported by the Delta State Police Command, carried out the Asaba operation on June 12, 2025.

“At the orphanage, over 70 children were profiled, and eight were positively identified through photographs, including Aisha. No arrest was made at the facility because only the proprietor’s wife was present,” Bello stated.

She confirmed that Nwoye was later arrested in Gombe, confessed to the crime, and returned four children. He, alongside Abubakar and Odlyne, is currently standing trial at the Gombe State High Court. While the two women remain in custody, Nwoye has been granted bail.

The DG emphasized that due process was followed, noting that the operation was conducted with police support. “The operation was not an abduction as the Agency does not engage in such condemnable acts but a lawful rescue under the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015,” she clarified.

Bello further revealed that the rescued children remain in NAPTIP protective custody, with DNA testing underway to confirm their parentage before reunification. She also called on the Delta State Government to investigate the operations of Happy Home Orphanage, citing reports of irregularities.

“The Agency remains committed to expeditiously concluding investigations, prosecuting those found culpable, and reuniting the children with their lawful families,” she assured.

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