By Kayode Sanni-Arewa

The issue of child traficking keeps on taking different dimensiona daily in the country. it is an established fact that nearly all trafficked victims are children.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) report, more than a half of child trafficking victims are trafficked within their own country according to the new report.

It was therefore a dramatic scene that was witnessed at the Nnamdi Azikwe international airport last Wednesday, June 26th 2024, when one Mr Godfrey Ayodele Iyama and his wife Mrs Stella Iyama tried to smuggle a 6-year-old child (name withheld) away from the country without the consent of the father and in blatant disobedience of court order (contempt of court)–that the child in question should not leave the shores of Nigeria.

According to private investigator who had been put on the trail of the couple, “in order to perfect their criminal activities the identification of the innocent little girl was changed from the name is was given at birth and in the international passport I had earlier procured for her to Mr Godfrey Ayodele Iyama claiming that the father of the little girl has died while the father is still alive. The surprising things is that the little girl is having two valid passport bearing different name”.

However, if what Mr Godfrey claimed is right, why change the name of the child, which is totally different from the name on the first passport issued to her? Even if the father is dead, does that automatically change the identity of the girl in question? A lot of questions are begging for answers.

He said: “If not God and quick intervention of immigration officer and proactiveness of the local investigator at the airport they would have boarded the Qatar Airway flight going to Birmingham international airport with the child. The immigration officer at the airport after arresting and detaining them handed them over to the airport security who investigated them and established that they were guilty of child trafficking.”

He added that: “This singular incident should open our eyes as a citizen of this country Nigeria to irregularity in our data system and how those saddle with the responsibility of keeping record should be on top of their job. In a country where the system is working, how possible for same person to have two different identification, but in a country where anything goes it is very possible.”

Our correspondent met with the biological father of the child who narrated the whole story.

He said, “I got married to Shulamite November 28, 2017. We had our child in August 16, 2018. In 2021, many times I confronted her over my feelings that she was being unfaithful to me but she denied it. Finally In April of 2021, she confessed to sleeping with her ex-boyfriend. Because we haven’t slept together for over a year , we did a pregnancy test and she tested positive. A few weeks later she told me she had removed the child and when I reported the matter to the church they invited her and she ran away from my house with my three years old girl while I was still at work”.

He added, “For over a year she refused to tell me where she is with my baby. I was forced to file for custody of the child. She also filed for custody. In the court, she alleged that I use to beat her but the court found no such evidence but rather found evidence of her finger nails on my neck when she held me on the the neck while I was asleep. The judge ruled that we should both have custody of the child. That the child will be with her during school period but will be with me during holidays. And that none of us should take the baby outside Nigeria. They have failed to obey the court injunction as they have consistently denied me access to my child up till now”.

He alleged that: “In addition, my father-in-law Mr. Godfrey Ayodele Iyama conspired with his wife Stella Iyama and their daughter Shulamite Ewoma Ozo-iyama to change my daughter’s NIN and fraudulently obtained another imternational passport for her.”

All effort to talk to the Mr Godfrey Ayodele Iyama to hear his own side of the story proved abortive.

The case is now being handled by NAPTIP