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The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, has called for an investigation into some civil society organisations, CSOs, allegedly being used as fronts by human traffickers to gain access to vulnerable communities and traffic children.

The agency also disclosed that it had recovered 118 children allegedly trafficked from Nasarawa, Benue and three other states in the North-Central region.

NAPTIP’s Head of Press and Public Relations, Vincent Adekoye, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at a joint briefing by security agencies’ spokespersons.

Adekoye said traffickers were increasingly exploiting communities affected by insecurity, including farmer-herder conflicts, by posing as representatives of non-governmental organisations and offering assistance to vulnerable families.

He said some traffickers approached distressed communities under the guise of providing educational and humanitarian support before taking children away.

“Traffickers also now masquerade under the umbrella of Civil Society Organizations and move to communities that are already distressed; moving to communities where you have farmer-herder crises, and promising parents that, ‘we will take your children back to school,’ under a fake back-to-school project. And from there, they harvest children, move them,” he said.

Adekoye disclosed that NAPTIP recently rescued four children in Onitsha, Anambra State, who were allegedly trafficked from Kajuru in Kaduna State in 2023.

He said some of the children were recovered from a high-rise building, while another was found in the custody of a nurse at a Federal Medical Centre in Onitsha.

According to him, the agency is planning to profile CSOs, particularly community-based and faith-based organisations operating in vulnerable areas, to prevent criminal elements from exploiting their credibility.

“We have continued to ensure that we want to profile the Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria. My DG has asked me to convey to them, the leadership of the CSOs in Nigeria, to do an in-house cleansing,” Adekoye said.

He explained that community-based, faith-based and non-governmental organisations were often familiar to residents and could therefore be exploited by traffickers seeking to gain the trust of vulnerable families.

The NAPTIP spokesman said the agency had so far recovered 118 children allegedly trafficked from Nasarawa, Benue and three other North-Central states.

He urged Nigerians to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities involving organisations seeking to take children away from their families.

“As at last count, we have recovered 118 of such children from those that were trafficked from Nasarawa and from Benue, and three other states within the North Central. So, we are appealing to Nigerians to be watchful. When you see them, please contact NAPTIP,” he said.

Adekoye recalled that NAPTIP had earlier disclosed the rescue of more than 180 children from trafficking networks allegedly operating under the guise of civil society organisations offering educational support to vulnerable families.

Traffickers exploit social media

The agency also warned of an increasing technology-driven dimension to human trafficking, saying traffickers were using social media platforms to recruit young Nigerians with promises of lucrative jobs and better living conditions abroad.

Adekoye said NAPTIP recently rescued 16 young Nigerian men from Thailand after they were allegedly lured with attractive employment offers.

He explained that the recruitment process was often designed to appear legitimate, with traffickers offering to arrange travel documents, transportation and other logistics for prospective victims.

“From beginning, it looks so real to them that they have no reason at all to doubt. So, the agency has been inundated in recent times with calls from some of them who are stranded.

“Just in July, we rescued about 16 of them from Thailand. When you hear their story, your emotion will corrupt you of what they pass through. Some of them couldn’t survive. Those who survived have a narrow escape from death,” he said.

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The Director-General of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, DIG Johnson Kokumo (retd), has dismissed allegations contained in a viral video claiming that persons arrested over the seizure of illegal arms at the Tin Can Island Port were allegedly being sponsored by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

Addressing journalists on Tuesday in Abuja during the joint security spokespersons briefing, Kokumo explained that he was personally present at the Tin Can Island Port when the Nigerian Customs Service handed over 399 assorted automatic weapons intercepted at the port to the centre.

He said, “The story in the video is not correct and cannot be correct.

“I was at the Tin Can Island Port with the Comptroller-General; 399 assorted automatic weapons were intercepted by the Nigerian Customs Service at the port. And this cache of arms, illegal weapons, was handed over to the centre.

“I was not there in a representative capacity; I was there personally. And the Comptroller-General, of course, was also present personally to do the handing over,” he said.

According to him, the seized weapons are currently secured in an armoury, while two suspects arrested in connection with the illegal importation remain in custody.

“As I’m talking to you, the arms are in a secured armoury. Two suspects arrested in connection with the illegal importation are currently in custody.

“Investigation is ongoing with a view to bringing to book the criminal elements in Nigeria and possibly identifying their international criminal partners outside the shores of Nigeria,” Kokumo added.

He further maintained that the allegations contained in the viral video were baseless, noting that the video also called for violence against the NSA and other persons.

“So, what has gone viral in the video is not correct and cannot be correct,” he stated.

Kokumo also disclosed that the Federal Government had continued to destroy recovered illicit weapons to prevent them from being diverted back into the hands of criminal and non-state actors.

He said the destruction of the weapons was in line with international conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory, including agreements under the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS.

“And of course, another reason for destroying them is to also ensure that the weapons so recovered do not find their way back into the hands of non-state actors for use on innocent citizens of Nigeria,” he said.

The Director-General said the Second Quarter Arms Destruction Exercise for 2026, conducted on July 30 at the Muhammadu Buhari Cantonment, Giri, Abuja, resulted in the public destruction of 1,419 illicit weapons.

He said the latest exercise brought the cumulative number of illicit weapons destroyed by the centre since 2022 to more than 19,000.

Kokumo said the destruction was part of efforts by the Federal Government to prevent the possession and use of illicit weapons by non-state actors involved in terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes.

He also disclosed that the centre had received 5,050 illicit, unserviceable, decommissioned and obsolete assorted automatic weapons retrieved from the Nigeria Police Force in June 2026.

He added that 399 JOJEF automatic guns intercepted by the Nigeria Customs Service were handed over to the centre on August 17, 2026.

Kokumo, however, said the government was not targeting legitimate local arms manufacturers, explaining that some artisanal producers possess skills that could be harnessed for national development.

“From time immemorial, in villages in Nigeria, we have traditional, well-aligned rights where people even fire for joy; they use Dane guns to do all this. We have local hunters who go into the bushes to hunt for rats and rabbits.

“All these guns, of course, are manufactured by local artisanal producers. But what we are seeing now is the introduction of sophisticated weapons,” he said.

He added that the government was particularly concerned about criminal manufacturers producing sophisticated illicit weapons.

“So, we have those who are criminal manufacturers of these illicit weapons; we are really out for them. And we have equally identified talents among the local manufacturers—the talents, those who are naturally talented, of course, will be absorbed into our plans, and we’ll see how they can be most efficient and most productively used in national service,” Kokumo stated.

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Candidates seeking admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions will now pay N4,000 only once to verify their West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, or O’Level results, under a new arrangement jointly introduced by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the West African Examinations Council, WAEC.

The development is expected to bring relief to admission seekers who have often been subjected to repeated verification of their academic credentials by different institutions during the admission process.

Under the new arrangement, candidates whose admissions are regulated by JAMB are required to verify their WAEC results once through JAMB, after which the verification outcome will be made available to the relevant tertiary institution.

JAMB and WAEC, in a joint statement issued on Tuesday, said candidates would make the ₦4,000 payment only through the specified JAMB Verification Service platform, stressing that the fee should not be paid to individual institutions.

The two bodies also directed tertiary institutions to utilise the verified results supplied by JAMB for admission screening, processing and other administrative purposes.

Consequently, institutions are not permitted to demand additional payments from candidates for another verification of the same WAEC result.

The new policy follows a series of meetings and consultations between JAMB and WAEC aimed at simplifying the verification process and reducing the financial and logistical burden on admission seekers.

According to the statement, WAEC has authorised JAMB to share the outcome of the verification exercise with relevant tertiary institutions for admission-related purposes.

“This arrangement is designed to ensure that candidates who have successfully verified their WASSCE O’ Level result through the Verification Service platform will not be required to repeat the same verification exercise,” the bodies said.

They explained that the initiative would also enable candidates to initiate the verification process from the comfort of their homes or any internet-enabled location, reducing the need for repeated visits to tertiary institutions or JAMB-approved Computer-Based Test, or CBT, centres.

JAMB and WAEC urged candidates to take advantage of the new arrangement by completing their WASSCE O’Level verification through the JAMB-provided platform once, noting that the verified result would subsequently be available to the institution where the candidate seeks admission.

The collaboration, the two examination and admission bodies said, was designed to put candidates’ interests first by cutting unnecessary costs, reducing administrative stress and simplifying the admission process while safeguarding the integrity and security of academic records.