The National Agency for
the Prohibition of
Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP), has recorded a major breakthrough in its investigations of human trafficking activities in Edo State, as it raided suspected voodoo shrines.
Detectives of the age-ncy’s national investigation task force raided the two voodoo shrines located in Benin and Uromi, in Edo State which led to the arrest of two juju priests.
Making the revelation while presenting her human trafficking investigation report, yesterday, the exec-utive secretary, Mrs. Carol Ndaguba, said that investigation efforts in human trafficking activities have been stalled by lack of infor-mation from victims and said priests aid human traffickers to recruit their victims thr-ough oath taking, harass-ment, intimidation and control of the victims.
The executive secretary said the juju-men were arres-ted following the deportation of four victims and their traffickers from Cotonou, Benin Republic, whose stories of intimidation were traced to the juju priests.
NAPTIP investigations according to Mrs Ndaguba, revealed that the trafficker had taken the girls to one of the priests before their arrest in Cotonou, to execute the blood oath to stop the girls from stealing her money in the business she promised to engage them in.
Mrs Ndaguba said that the idea was to bewitch them and ensure silence on their activities.
Items recovered from the shrine in Uromi included a notebook containing names of the victims, their addre-sses, pictures of men who are foreign nationals and charms.
The second juju man, Mrs Ndaguba said was arrested in his shrine in Benin and items recovered included female pubic hairs and finger nails belonging to a Nigerian victim who was presently in Belgium.
Mrs Ndaguba who reiterated the importance of information as a necessary ingredient of the work of the agency, implored Nigerians to volunteer information that will help the agency tackle the menace, saying infor-mants would be treated with utmost confidentiality.
According to her, time had come to break the circle of this conspiracy and silence and the cases had already been charged to court in Benin, as the two juju priests said they had for long acted out of ignorance and will help the agency in its investigations.
It will be recalled that the Anambra State police com-mand recently raided the popular Okija shrine and recovered 20 human skulls and 50 bodies.
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