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New Page 11
Kidnap attempt lands OPC man in
trouble
EJIKEME OMENAZU
WHAT could
have prompted a family of four to abandon their home in Ewekoro in Ogun State
and evaporated into thin air overnight?
This is what members of the community in
Ogun are poised to unravel as the family whose son is believed to be a member of
Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in Ewekoro has been declared wanted by the
people for an alleged kidnap attempt.
Mr. Samuel Babatola, his wife and only son
are alleged to have fled the Ewekoro community after they had been fingered as
being part of a syndicate that allegedly kidnap children and selling them
outside the country for cheap labour.
According to a member of the Ewekoro
community Mr. Babalola Otun, who called at Sunday Champion office earlier
in the week the family is feared to have fled through border paths to the
Republic of Benin.
They were said to be running away from the
community’s vigilante groups who were bent on unleashing terror on the family
after a tip off on their alleged illegal activities.
Narrating the incident to Sunday
Champion in Lagos, Mr. Otun disclosed that nemesis caught up with Sunday
Babatola and his parents when a resident of the community, Mr. Adebisi Ogundare
who sent his 12-year-old on an errand but could not see the boy after over one
hour later raised alarm.
A neighbour who claimed to have seen the
boy, Tunde, entering the house of Babatola alerted his father who wasted no time
to inform the vigilante group.
Sensing danger, Babatola allegedly
released the boy and fled into the bush with his family to avoid being nabbed
and mobbed by the group which was on their trail.
Samuel Babatola, his wife Abigail and son,
Sunday were alleged to have fled the community in a hurry fearing that they
could be lynched by the enraged community.
All efforts to trace the runaway family
had so far become abortive leading to the community despatching some of their
indigenes to Lagos and other cities in search of them to no avail.
Sunday, the only son of the family
described is of average height and dark in complexion and loves to be in the
company of girls, but no one could ascertain which of the factions of the OPC he
belongs to.
He was suspected to have dragged the
family in the mud as he had been accused of luring teenagers and children into a
bush which he and some members of his syndicate still at large turned to a
‘business centre’.
Such children were said to be taken away
through bush paths to Republic of Benin where they were allegedly transferred to
other international groups who engage in human trafficking and transborder slave
trade.
As Mr. Otun who was in the company of
another community leader, Mr. John Adeola told Sunday Champion the house
of the Babatola family could be torched if the combined efforts of the community
and the law enforcement agents turned abortive.
They lamented that despite efforts of
government and several non-governmental organisations (NGO) to check incidence
of human trafficking and transborder slave trade, bad elements in the society
had continued to engage in the ignominious deals because of what they called
"blood money".
Some known members of the OPC in the area
are said to have been put on surveillance by the security agents following the
incident last week, even as the people of Ewekoro in cities had been alerted.
Wife of Edo governor, Mrs. Eki Igbinedion
through her Idia Renaissance and wife of the Vice-President, Mrs. Titi Abubakar
founder of WOTCLEF (Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation)
have been in the forefront of the campaign against human trafficking and child
labour.
Mrs. Abubakar is taking the campaign to
United States of America this week where she is billed to address members of
Congressional Black Caucus.
The high rate of illegal but lucrative
business of human trafficking has become a source of worry to Nigerians, the
society and the international community.
To curb this menace, the federal
government set up the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffick in Persons
and other Related Matters (NAPTIP). International organisations represented by
UNICEF team up to pull down the evil tree of child trafficking.
Trafficking in human beings is regarded
world-over as a barbaric act opposed to modernism as it limits people’s liberty
and freedom in an era of democratic rights and privileges.
Reports from Saudi Arabia shows that
Nigerian women trafficked to the oil-rich country who were unwilling to
co-operate with their potential male sex sheiks, have had their private parts
burnt.
Stories from places like Belgium and Italy
where Nigerian women and young men are subjected to all forms of bestiality
including having sex with animals in front of cameras for movies are as sordid
as the acts.
Even the young men are made to engage in
slave labour with less to show for their efforts while their ‘masters’ smile to
the banks on daily basis.
The unscrupulous and exploitative bosses
are found in far places as Rome, parts of Europe, Middle East, Asia, North
America and African countries.
NAPTIP studies have shown that Nigeria is
a source, a route, a transit and a destination country in human trafficking. It
is the only country with short record and classification.
However, like the sad story of Sunday
Babatola in Ewekoro, the porous border with Republic of Benin provides a
gate-way for the syndicates for this illicit trade that has continued to defy
official panacea.
Recently, Nigeria was listed on the Tier 2
Watch List for women and child trafficking in the fourth annual trafficking in
persons report by the United States Department of State.
This development, Sunday Champion
gathered could lead to the withholding by US government of non-humanitarian,
non-trade-related assistance to Nigeria ironically on October 1, 2004, the date
for the country’s independence anniversary.
This action if implemented could include
the retention of funding for participation by Nigeria in U.S. sponsored
educational and cultural exchange programmes.
Thus it is sad that government efforts as well as those of
individuals like Eki Igbinedion and Titi Abubakar are being thwarted by people
like Babatola who Sunday Champion sources say is suspected to belong to
one of the OPC factions.
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