The significance of Dele Giwa’s death, by journalists

By Ruona Agbroko
October 19, 2009 01:49AMT

Twenty-three years after the founding Editor of Newswatch, Dele Giwa [pictured], was killed by a parcel bomb, his colleague and friend, Ray Ekpu, the chief executive officer of Newswatch Communications Limited, says “nothing has changed.”
Speaking with NEXT by telephone yesterday, Mr. Ekpu said the date, October 19, 1986 “is significant because of the nature of his death. That significance is highlighted by the fact that in subsequent years, a number of journalists have been murdered by forces known and unknown in the course of their work and that indicates to you that if anything has changed, it’s changed for the worse, for the journalism profession, and for journalists who are practising in Nigeria.”
Other journalists have also described Mr. Giwa’s death as the “opening of a very sad chapter in the history of journalism which has not been closed.”
Gbenga Adefaye, Chairman of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, said; “it is a very significant date for the practice of this profession because it introduced a new dimension. Journalism became something people could die for, be killed for.”
Lanre Arogundade, Co-ordinator of the International Press Centre, Ogba, Lagos said today “marks a black spot on the media calendar in Nigeria because that was the first time that a journalist would be brutally assassinated... through a parcel bomb, for that matter.”
Every media practitioner spoken to expressed disappointment that Mr. Giwa’s killers remain unnamed.
Wahab Oba, Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Lagos Chapter, called the development a serious threat. “For us as a union, we see it as a critical challenge to continue everything to stop this trend. The fact that almost 23 years on, the government has not been able to unveil those behind it is a major shortfall on their part.”
For Mr. Arogundade, the killing “raises a big question as to how safe the journalist is in this country today.”
He said, “Because Dele Giwa’s murder remains unsolved, the perpetuators have the confidence to continue to murder journalists. ”
Where were you on October 19, 1986?
Mr. Arogundade had just finished his National Youth Service and was hoping to “just walk into Newswatch, introduce myself and drop an application” when Mr. Giwa was bombed. When it happened, there was no way you could talk about going there. It was something that made one to wonder the nature of the profession one was about to enter, but here I am,” he said.
Mr. Adefaye told NEXT he was already a practising journalist, with the Vanguard, and so didn’t think of leaving the job. “I was devastated and frightened, given the way he was killed. But I didn’t become a journalist by accident or because I couldn’t get a job. So it wasn’t something that made me want to leave the profession, because you could die anywhere, in any case. One could die of food poisoning, by accidents, or of natural causes.”
Mr. Oba on the other hand, was still an undergraduate and found added conviction to be a journalist in Giwa’s death. “Not very long before, he came to our campus at the University of Ilorin and told us that ‘as a journalist, you will make it’. He was an icon to us. To hear that he was murdered was so sad. There were some of us who thereafter chose this profession and decided that we would be like Dele Giwa. We felt that the aim was not to get rich, to be a millionaire, but to expose evil in the society, to let life be meaningful for others and to represent others.”
Effect of Giwa’s death on the profession
The journalists are of the opinion that the print media in Nigeria is growing despite the adverse conditions in which its practitioners work.
Mr. Ekpu was quick to point out that “every profession has its downsides, and its upsides. Journalism is no exception. There are risks, all types of risks involved, and nobody can hope to practise any profession sans risk. You take journalism as a whole; the grind and the glamour, the burdens and the benefits, they all go together. So it is not enough; the fact that people are exposed to these risks, they pay the ultimate price...it is not enough for anyone who wants to practise journalism to shy away from it.” Mr. Oba summed up his opinions with what he described as the immortality of journalism “Today, 23 years after, Dele Giwa is still being remembered.
A lot of people have died without anybody knowing or remembering. The life of a journalist is worth living, provided you do the job well.”

*Photo from Oludare Lasisi

Judge adjourns hearing on Ibori aides’ trial

Ruona Agbroko
October 3, 2009 11:03PMT

Presiding judge Christopher Hardy at the Southwark Crown court in London on Friday adjourned till November 9, hearing on the money laundering trial involving the female aides of the former governor of Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori [pictured]. The aides reportedly helped him move an estimated £70 million worth of looted funds through several London banks.
The judge reportedly based his decision on an ongoing trial in Asaba, Delta State filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission against Mr. Ibori and Udoamaka Onuigbo, one of the accused.
The lawyers defending Ms. Onuigbo; Bimpe Pogoson, Ibori’s former personal assistant on confidential matters; and Christie Ibori-Ibie, his sister had requested a halt to the hearing pending the conclusion of the case in Asaba.
Reports show that the defence and prosecution teams have remained divided in their arguments. The defence reportedly maintained that should Mr. Ibori be acquitted of the charges against him, the case in the UK against his former aides would not stand.
The prosecution was however of the view that even if Mr. Ibori was not indicted in Nigeria, they possessed sufficient evidence in the UK to convict the defendants.
Also, while the defence argued that the Ibori trial was being expedited and would be concluded within three months, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, in its correspondence with the London Metropolitan Police claimed that the trial might run till 2011 across all necessary courts.
What the Judge said
According to news reports, prior to announcing the ruling, Judge Hardy had asserted that counsel to both parties were prepared for the trial proper to start in the UK, and that the verdict on the Asaba case would in no way affect the proceedings and outcome of the UK trial.
He, however, announced that going by information made available to him that hearing on the case in Asaba would be held on October 26, his court would commence the trial of the three accused persons two weeks later, from November 9, 2009. Judge Hardy also said that bail conditions for the defendants would not be waived, regardless of the adjournment.

Excerpts of his decision which were made available to NEXT read thus:
“I am asked to rule on the propriety of the UK proceedings whilst the Nigerian proceedings have yet to take place.
“I had requested further information from Nigeria as to the state of play there and the information I have received has been very helpful. I am told that the Prosecution are ready for trial and they can see no reason for any delay. I am of the view that the outcome of the Nigerian proceedings are not determinative for the UK trial, however I also accept that it would be unfair to proceed in the UK as the hearing in Nigeria is only a few weeks away. In order to prevent any injustice on the defendants,
it would be unfair to proceed. I am told that the hearing in Nigeria will be short, it is expected to last a couple of hours and the judgement will be within two weeks. I believe therefore the Court should have the full picture and so will adjourn this matter to the 9th November 2009, when trial will start. I am also reminded that Court of Appeal applications will be heard during this time”.

*Photo by NEXT

EFCC engaged in futile showmanship

By Ruona Agbroko
August 27, 2009 12:34AMT
Lawyers across the country have described as ‘hasty’, ‘misdirected’ and ‘publicity-seeking’ moves by the chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Farida Waziri, to relocate to Lagos and unleash a debt recovery team on individuals and companies indebted to the five stressed banks whose management were recently sacked by the apex bank.
The EFCC had disclosed that, following the expiration of its ultimatum to the debtors yesterday, 100 operatives of the agency were being added to the 250 already in Lagos, while an extra 40 mobile police officers would join in the task of investigating and prosecuting debtors.
However, lawyers who spoke to NEXT yesterday unanimously said by acting as a debt recovery unit, the agency had derailed.
Jiti Ogunye, head of the Lawyers League for Human Rights, said “the recovery of money is secondary. That is not the primary reason why the EFCC should be interested in these cases. If a financial crime has been committed in getting these loans, if the debtors pay within a deadline, does that mean the person has not committed a crime? The EFCC is engaged in showmanship and an odious game of spontaneity.
It now has a penchant of just gate-crashing, arresting people and charging them to courts with no jurisdiction to hear these cases. They do not follow through on the cases. They are content to leave it at this stage so long as there are screaming headlines saying EFCC is working.”

Crying wolf
The EFCC’s recent press statements and news reports on the issue also received some flak.
Mr. Ogunye said the agency’s motives were less than honourable. “This is blue-collar crime, perpetuated over a period of time. By law, the EFCC is supposed to be getting reports from its financial intelligence unit on these banks. Where was EFCC when these people were going to the capital market, giving or taking these huge loans that created huge holes in the system? The questions Nigerians have to ask is: why did the EFCC have to wait for the CBN to uncover this before it jumped in the fray?
If the EFCC really wants to act, it should be more proactive and give up this showmanship."
Bamidele Aturu, a legal practitioner, said the EFCC would be better off showing more civility in its dealings. “The EFCC must not take the laws into its hands. The courts are there to resolve these matters. The courts themselves must not become instruments to avoid repayment of loans which people took from the banks.
Chinua Asuzu, an attorney and rights activist, said the frenzy by the EFCC would prove counter-productive. “The fact that one is not paying a loan to the bank is not a crime. It is only when there is deliberate collusion to avoid paying the loans and loans are distributed less than honourably, that there has been crime. In this respect, the EFCC is being very hasty in the arrests.
Some of the misconducts that have been committed by the banks are in the region of civil law. Though there are incidences of criminal behaviour, you don’t start with arrests. They have to start with finding out who are the culprits and determine the level of culpability. Their business is to determine and punish crime not enshrine banking ethics.” Mr. Asuzu added that in its haste, the EFCC had neglected to consider the costs of prosecuting these cases against the monies to be recovered, as the final implications of these investigations would still be borne by taxpayers.
Mr. Ogunye disclosed that the EFCC may have already begun to pay for its failure to adequately prove criminal intent in the disbursement of the bank loans, as senior lawyers were headed for the courts and obtaining orders against the EFCC on the grounds that individuals were being detained unlawfully, beyond 48 hours. “Waziri is saying they are looking for others so they can prosecute all these cases together. I forsee the EFCC being swamped by more of these orders”, he said.

Our policemen are betrayed by their leaders

By Ruona Agbroko
August 23, 2009 04:48PMT
When former Inspector-General of the Nigerian police, Mike Okiro told legislators this January he would need N2.78 trillion, equivalent of 90 percent of the 2009 budget -to “run the police force and effectively enhance its crime fighting capacity”, a few present may have given him the benefit of the doubt.
The specifics were however a different matter entirely. Defending the figures, the IG’s estimate before the House of Reps Committee on Police Affairs allocated N767.5 million to miscellaneous purposes including feeding of dogs, horses and vehicle maintenance. This figure was promptly struck out. The Nigerian Police received a budget of N202 billion.
Reacting, Okiro reportedly called the budget, “woeful”, adding that police dogs and horses would not be fed this year and would therefore “die in a week”.
But looking at the state of Nigeria’s policemen and the barracks they live in nationwide, it is obvious a vast majority of the 300,000 men are actually the ones dying for want of amenities that support quality living.
When NEXT paid a visit to two barracks in Lagos, it met discontent residents, dilapidated buildings and septic tanks overflowing with faeces.
“This barracks has been smelling for years; this is where we are raising our children”, a policeman who lives in the Obalende Police barracks told NEXT, with his hands over his nostrils.
Still, he is better off. According to media reports quoting CLEEN, a non-profit organisation, “less than 10 percent of police officers have official accommodation in barracks many sleep in privately owned apartments. Many others sleep in broken down vehicles.”
This was corroborated by a high-ranking official last week, in an interview with NEXT; “Nigeria’s barracks have no functioning clinics or steady supply of water, this accommodation thing is worsened by erratic transfers in the Force. Men and Officers can be transferred twice or thrice in a year, depending on the whims of their superior officers. Often, there are no accommodation arrangements and they sleep in offices, laying mattresses anywhere they can.”

Cause and Effect
The police chief told NEXT that a mix of widespread greed and government neglect has made the policeman a symbol of inefficiency and an object of ridicule.
“The police are not loved by Nigerians. There are good policemen but they are few, the exception. The lower ranks earn about N26,000 but take home some N18,000 after all deductions. I think an inspector earns about N32,000.
“Between various levels within a rank, the salary differences may have just N100 difference.” The official, who has spent almost three decades in service said the frustrations of his colleagues were many; “In the old days, we had stationery delivered to all police stations in their thousands monthly.
“Today police stations buy ordinary exercise books and usually tax litigants to buy these things. Our men hijack commercial vehicles to go on duty. This is despite a budget of ₦5.5 million for office materials and supplies. “Again, though the budget clearly allocates ₦2.5 million to “uniforms and other clothings”, most police officers are yet to receive the light blue uniform their superiors wear. Our source said these men have blatantly justified bribe-taking from the public as their only means of purchasing new belts, boots, torchlights and maintaining their old uniforms.

Illegal Duty
Three weeks ago, newly-appointed IG of Police Ogbonnaya Onova said 100,000 officers (about a third of the entire force) were security personnel for elite individuals.
This is yet another long standing racket, according to the police official. “We call it ‘illegal duty’. All past IGs have passed such directives, yet the middle ranking officers do not listen. Senior officers assign juniors. They remit N50,000 to the police station and officers are sent to guard houses.
The senior officers give an average of N8,000 to these men who risk their lives protecting anybody from 419ners to bank executives. Our men are looking after the aged mothers of celebrities in villages. A magistrate in Osogbo beat up his escort for not opening a gate for him.
Officers were recently shot by armed robbers who attacked houses they were guarding and no query, nothing came out of it.
Even at that, policemen still prefer illegal duty because they are assured of daily meals and stipends at their posting, while the N8,000 augments their salaries. This is selective policing. Who will police the masses?” Our source traces the beginnings of corruption in the system to a heady mixture of politics with policing.
For example, the government gives money for building and rehabilitation of barracks, yet most of these places have not been painted in at least five years, not to talk of provision of amenities.

Policing in the dark
There are three police training colleges in Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu states, as well as a Staff College in Jos, Plateau State, for senior officers. This is in addition to a police academy in Kano and Detective colleges in Kaduna and Enugu State.
Our source disclosed that training and living facilities are lacking in these institutions and this has affected the capacity of officers to fight crime.
“The only forensics equipment in the Force CID headquarters in Lagos and Kaduna are in bad shape. If there’s a murder case, evidence is taken abroad for analysis. And this happens only in high profile cases, as all Nigerians know. If someone is murdered in Ajegunle, even if they go there and take evidence, you can’t take it abroad.
So all these visits to the scenes of crime are mere formalities. How do you analyse evidence, even if you had the professional mind set to investigate? This is why torture and word of mouth is relied on for investigation of cases. We have never even had artists that sketch suspects and we want to be among the world’s top 20 economies in 2020. How is that possible?
If forensics is the eye of watching crime, then we have been policing in the dark.”

Quality and quantity
The rot in the sector is apparently to be shared by the public, members of the force and other law enforcement bodies; “people bribe policemen because they do not want to waste their time. This encourages corruption as policemen keep asking for these things and inventing more novel approach to extort money.” Again, we have such a bad name that refined people are not seeking jobs with the police.
Most people recruited want to use their uniform to steal from the people. We have been complacent. Many forge papers in the stupidest of ways; you find they must have been seven or eight years old when they did their O’levels. These things are not helped by the lack of databases in the country. Before, there was something called ‘Information Money’; funds were provided to pay informants.
Now informants give information, when a person is arrested, the police extort money and they share with the ‘informant’...It is now a business.”

The channel that feeds the international sex trade

By Ruona Agbroko
August 22, 2009 03:49PMT
Standing just outside the town hall in Egor local government council, Edo State, Caroline Osasu [pictured] did not allow NEXT talk to her daughter. This is not surprising. Mrs. Osazu mumbles in pidgin English that she agreed to this interview in the first place, only because the ‘fixer’ was her close friend.
“I can explain a little. I cannot just explain everything because...” she stops midway, as her eyes fill with tears. Fair-skinned, with some wrinkles, beautiful, though impoverished, this mother of seven won’t even look me in the eyes as we speak. She often retreats into a shell of silence; quite like the big snails she sells at Egor market for a meagre living.
Mrs. Osasu was approached by a family friend who said she wanted to “help” her 22-year-old daughter ‘travel out’. Her first child, whose name she did not reveal, worked for 10 months in Spain as a prostitute before she was deported two months ago.
She is just one of thousands of Nigerian females trafficked into the international sex trade yearly. According to the National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons, (NAPTIP), about 10,000 Nigerian girls, aged between 13 to 17 years, are either in jail or held captive by sex-slave lords in Morocco and Libya, with a high percentage of them being indigenes of Edo State.
About that same number of females are also reportedly living and working in Italy as prostitutes. Adefunke Abiodun, Head, Benin zone of NAPTIP, said that within Africa, Nigeria is the largest single source of trafficked women to Europe and Asia. “It is a lucrative business for the trafficker, their recruiters... in fact, everyone, except the girls concerned”.
Mrs. Abiodun said although some girls were willing to get involved in the trade, they had no choice regarding which country they would end up in—or how life-threatening and lengthy their journeys would be. Only few go by air. And even then, they do so after going by road to other African countries (Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire and South Africa) and may reach Europe by train.

Trail of tears
“More are shuttled from Benin to Katsina and on to Niger/Togo/Burkina Faso/Guinea from where they often have to walk through a section of the Sahara desert to get to Algeria or Morocco,” she said. Horror tales abound. Deaths have occurred on the desert stretch; the victims are covered with sand and the rest continue the drive or trek. Some girls are sold, or made to prostitute to raise money to continue the journey.
Many are impregnated, contract HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases and, like the 10,000 girls in Libya and Morocco, are considered faulty goods and left behind in transit countries.
Those remaining must continue the journey by boat (usually at night) from Morocco to Spain. These tangible dangers, however, have done nothing to stem the sex trade. If anything, it toughens the girls. Mrs. Osasu admitted that her daughter did not return home because she did not want to continue in the job as a sex worker. “She came back home because she was deported,” she said.

Edo State carries the stigma
Edo State prides itself in having 2,000 years of history and culture. But, sadly, it also has the unattractive reputation of being a hub for the international sex trade. According to The Advocacy Project, a Washington based NGO, “Edo is only one of 36 Nigerian states, but it has produced over 80 per cent of the women trafficked to Europe.
Trafficking prostitutes began in the late 1980s, when Italy was importing immigrant labourers to feed a booming informal economy. Nigerian women began travelling to the central Italian region of Campania to pick tomatoes. Gradually, they were attracted to the large cities of Rome, Naples, and Florence, where they found a high demand for their charms.
(So high, in fact, that on one occasion, Italian prostitutes publicly protested against the encroachment on their turf by Nigerians.)” Today, trafficking females for prostitution is an industry of sorts. NEXT’s investigations revealed that there are two classes of travellers: those who paid their handling charges to the destination and those who were poorer and would therefore have to be ‘sponsored’.
Mrs. Osasu said the latter was the case with her daughter. “My child worked and paid this woman 25,000 euros in 10 months, yet she said the money was not enough. That until she is satisfied, that is when we will stop paying.” Jomo Edafeyeyan, a resident of Egor, says: ‘Girls who are sponsored are actually the ones who are thoroughly maltreated, especially if the madam was once assaulted herself.
"Her thugs, who also act as ‘trolley,’ sleep with the girls anyhow and beat them into submission at the madam’s request. For those who pay their way, they part with up to ₦500, 000. But again, they get returned faster, since they are not as ‘lucrative’ as the thoroughly dependent girls.” A trolley is the agent who ferries the girl from her home to the required destination.
"Once there, reports show that girls are asked to pay back as much as $50,000 dollars, by prostituting. For those who refuse, anything from threats with arrest, beatings, and even death may be their lot.”

Ruthless people
Last year, media reports quoted Isoke Aikpitanyi, founder and spokesperson of the Association of Benin City Girls (ABCG), as saying that more than 200 prostitutes had been killed in Italy within three years, by their handlers when they attempted to escape. ABCG is the only association of victims and former victims of human trafficking in Italy.
“These people are ruthless”, Mrs. Edafeyeyan said. She said the practice was so widespread that virtually every family in Edo has a person working abroad, or has someone who is a sponsor or recruiter or who must at least know people who are any of these three.
Another source, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, told NEXT. “Here, it is a thing of pride to have a child abroad, no matter if she is into prostitution."
Obituary announcements leave people envious of the number of children the deceased has abroad. At parties, special music is played and people who do not have children abroad are asked to leave the dance floor so those who do can preen. They spray euros and dollars as others look on, wishing out loud that they either had children abroad or that their children had stayed long enough to have legal documents instead of being repatriated.”

A trade backed by manipulation
The handlers also make their potential wards go through frightening rituals to make them obey their wish. A source said: “On the day of departure, the girls have their pubic and armpit hairs shaved, their nails cut and given to their handlers. Their underwear is also confiscated. It is believed that these intimate items are held by the sponsors to enable them place a curse on the girls should they refuse to pay their debts. The girls are often taken to shrines where they swear they will not renege on the terms of their ‘contract’.”
Mrs. Abiodun also confirmed that girls trafficked have reported they were told to indulge in pornography which was filmed and photographed by their handlers. In January 2005, customs and immigration officials conducting routine checks came across pornographic pictures, pubic hair, finger nails, menstrual pads, immigration records, payment records, and agreements of debt bondage, all wrapped in batches with the names of the owners in a bag belonging to a certain Esther Eborieme.
Quack lawyers have also been known to draw up agreements, on behalf of sponsors, which say the girls or their family members will be arrested for failure to pay up. Mrs. Osasu was dragged to the Aiyelala shrine to swear that a curse would befall her if she had received any money from her daughter when the sponsor’s debt was not yet paid off.
“A whole generation of children have been brought up on this prostitution money, but it has also destroyed a lot of families,” says the NAPTIP boss. “Even parents fight each other over money sent home by their children. Families have also squandered funds sent for building of houses or buying of cars, only for the poor girls to come home to nothing.”

The people
The Distraught Mother: Caroline Osasu
Well, I didn’t know my daughter would end up a prostitute. The person who carried her there said she wanted to help me. I did not pay, but when my child got there, she started paying her back. My daughter spent about 10 months before she came back from Spain. After about 10 months, she said police arrested her there, they carried her to a cell, then they brought her to Lagos.
She told me everything that happened, but she did not return because of prostitution. She returned because she was deported. She is now in computer school. I will like to tell people that before your child goes abroad, be careful because you cannot allow just anybody to carry your child abroad. Young girls should face their jobs.

The two-time traveller: ‘At least I am a free woman now’- Victoria Ohonbahor
The first time I went to Italy was in 1979. They came to meet me that they would sponsor me. I won’t lie; I knew I was going to do sex work. Business is business. Nobody beat me or treated me badly. I spent six months in Italy, but it was inside the refugee camp. I did not have chance to work because they arrested us immediately we arrived. Our documents were fake.
I went again in 1985, but that time was worse. We were in Libya for three months. They were fighting in the country so the police quickly caught us. When they sent me back again for the second time, I knew that I was not lucky with travelling out. I had to pay my sponsor with a plot of land my parents left for me when they died. I did not want to go to jail. The land is here in Egor.
They have already built a house on it. Since! But at least, I am a free woman. I am not looking for big money in my life again. I have two children, so if I can see small money to support this my fish hawking business, I will be happy.

The Younger Sister: ‘We thought she had contracted AIDS’ -Blessing Smart
We are 10 children; six daughters and four boys. Growing up was hard. My sister is 27. She was approached by someone who told her she can travel. She said the madam someone introduced her to said she should start the prostitution even before they left Libya to go to Italy. When she refused, the madam sent her boys to beat her up. So she ran from them in Libya and came back home herself.
Somebody helped her. Some of the girls that went with my sister died when they went for abortion. The madam was wicked. Her boys even broke her hand before she came. She was so sick we thought maybe she had contracted AIDS. There were a lot of marks on her body.

The government
Abike Dabiri, Chairperson, House of Reps committee on Diaspora
This is a national embarrassment. We have a case of young girls within 13 years and above, in various jails in Libya and Morocco. Some are pregnant and having their babies in prison. Still, they use them for prostitution. The authorities are clamping down on them and putting them in jails. And they are saying they want to go home.
We have met with the Oba of Benin and the governor on the need to educate the people, and in terms of rehabilitating repatriated girls respectively. Even from our conversations with the girls, they didn’t go without the support of their mothers. They go with the knowledge of their families. No matter how bad it is, we should not send our girls into prostitution.
We know that government has to do its job of providing infrastructure and all that, but no matter how bad it is, there is no justification for mothers to send their daughters into prostitution.

Adams Oshiomole, Governor of Edo State
I think we need all our senses and less emotion to deal with this issue. No country changes because its citizens perfect the act of lamentation. Nigeria is in trouble; I do not regard this as Edo problem. It does not matter if majority of the young girls are of Edo State origin. The basic fact is that they are Nigerians. And they are a federal responsibility.
The federal government has a responsibility to any Nigerian stranded outside the country. Foreign relations are exclusively a federal matter. The federal government controls over 51 per cent of our national income. It is about protecting the right of citizens. The first thing is to halt this and put an end to what is becoming a tradition; that people sell their children.
The second challenge is getting those who have migrated back home from continuing prostitution when they get back home. We have to look at this, in the medium and long term, how to get these girls meaningfully engaged. We are not going to wish poverty away. Both the federal, state and local governments must look into this. We have to sustain this campaign.

Adefunke Abiodun, Head, Benin zone office of NAPTIP (which covers Edo and Delta States)
We were set up in July 2004. That same year in December, we secured a conviction against a trafficker. The six girls that the trafficker was carrying were rehabilitated. One of them is now a staff with NAPTIP. We’ve had eight other convictions and 12 cases are pending. We work with overseas partners because in their countries, they have a lot of Nigerians—young girls from this state—and they constitute a nuisance.
NAPTIP is not against migration or emigration. We are against human trafficking, which is modern-day slavery. Taking the proceeds of someone’s prostitution is inhuman. We go to their homes to counsel their parents, ask them to accept their daughters back. These young girls have merely taken the bull by the horns to say ‘Well, there is nothing in Nigeria for me.I want to go out... whatever it costs.’ Once you see that kind of thing, you know that the government has a responsibility. It is not easy tracking down traffickers because these girls feel that those who traffic them are actually doing them a favour.
It may be their family members, their boyfriends... people close to them. Those who have been really maltreated by their madams know better.

Story of a swallower

By Ruona Agbroko
May 24, 2009 04:45AMT

John Ifeanyi Uko [pictured] was arrested on April 09, 2009 for ingesting 136 wraps of cocaine weighing a total of 3.349 kilogrammes. He holds the unenviable record of being the first individual to swallow the highest quantity of cocaine, since the NDLEA was set up in June 1989.
Mr. Uko refuses to speak at first, as he fixed his close-set eyes instead at nothing in particular on the floor. When he is told he is handsome, he smiles, then chuckles briefly, and asked of what use, good looks are to him now. When he finally speaks, his voice, with a baritone rasp, is barely audible.

“The publicity is too much,” the 46-year-old father of three managed to say amidst sighs. “Make una no kill me.” When asked if he understands that he is a spectacle, not only for the quantity of drugs he ingested, but also because he is still alive despite taking such a huge health risk, the suspected drug mule shrugs.

“I don’t know if I am lucky to still be alive or not,” he says. “I’m just like a goat in a slaughter house. Anytime they open the door, you do what they ask you to do.” Seated in the offices of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at Ikoyi, Mr. Uko says he has been in the confinement of the agency since May 15. Laughing, he appreciates the availability of water, and confirms that his relatives and a lawyer have access to him but gripes about the biting mosquitoes, and the inadequate meals: watery beans in the morning and minute portions of eba with egusi (melon seed) soup in the afternoon.
His story reads like any average drug courier’s. Impoverished family circumstances and a failing auto spare parts business prompted him to seek assistance from “a brother” who offered him about ₦920,000 in exchange for transporting cocaine. Mr. Uko says that until officials of the drug agency arrested him at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, he had no idea that he was carrying in his stomach, cocaine worth about ₦57 million (street value).
“I didn’t actually know the consequences of what I was doing,” he says. “I was desperate... looking at the money. They told me the more I swallowed, the more money they would give me... I am a large eater, my stomach is big. I was waiting to board (a) KLM (flight) going to Germany when I was caught. I didn’t even know they could scan people at (the) airport.”

With rapidly watering eyes, Mr. Uko, who hails from Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, says his only regrets are for his aged mother, wife and three children in the university. “Every day, I wonder what will happen to them,” he says. “This trauma, this shame is too much for me, talk less of them.”

Nigeria’s drug fighters make record hauls

By Ruona Agbroko
May 31, 2009 03:37PMT

The number of Nigerians arrested at airports trafficking drugs has increased more than 10 times over the last decade, new data from the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has shown.

In 1994, 632 male drug couriers were detained, by 2008 the number of those arrested had risen to 7,584. The figures also reveal that there are a lot more men involved in the crime than women.

Officers of the agency however said they are happy that Nigeria is, largely, not a drug consuming nation. The nation, they said, is however, along the transit route for South East/ South West Asian heroin and South American cocaine to Western markets.
The head, public affairs of the agency, Mitchell Ofoyeju, said illicit drugs from source countries are ferried to Nigeria and on to consuming countries by an increasing number of drug couriers.
“Nigeria is a drug transit country because no dealer will sell a kilogram of cocaine here for N8 million - N10 million when they can get a 500 per cent increase, with just a six-hour flight,” Mr. Ofoyeju said.

“Unfortunately, this has been at the expense of human lives. From 632 male drug couriers arrested in 1994, we apprehended 7,584 in 2008. The females, from 61, have also risen to 315 in the corresponding period.”

According to the agency, drugs barons often recruit couriers or ‘mules’ with fees ranging from N410, 000 to a little over a million naira - upon delivery of drugs worth 30 times more. Every year, a few thousands swallow or hide as much wraps of these drugs as they can, mostly in hotel rooms. Provided with travel documents, they proceed to the airport. The agency’s spokesperson said some flights tend to be problematic in this regard.

“Often, passengers leaving for Amsterdam are likely to carry drugs,” he said. “Flights from source countries such as Brazil also get our attention. Other areas that we concentrate on include flights going to Italy, Rome, Spain, France, and Germany.

As soon as a passenger tests positive, they are monitored at our office in the airports until they finish excreting the drugs. From there, they are taken to the headquarters for investigation. They get access to a lawyer. Occasionally, the drug wraps burst open. One lady slumped even before getting to the screening point and died in hospital,” Ofoyeju said.
The drug trade also seems to have several layers of operatives, apart from the baron and the mule. The baron might also spend up to N10 million depending on the quantity of drugs he is sending, per trip. He or she has to pay the recruiter, the person who sends the drugs to the mule, as well as those who handle the paper work.

“So when we effect an arrest, we have succeeded in taking at least N15 million from a drug baron,” Ofoyeju said. “And we make nothing less than 15 arrests monthly. So if you want to calculate it in monetary terms, it’s over N100 million. Our job ends when the suspects are taken to court.”

It’s a southerner’s game
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its World Drug Report 2008, said the largest African cocaine seizures were reported by Nigeria in 2006. That year, over 140,000 kilograms of drugs were destroyed to eliminate the chances of their being recycled. The agency couldn’t really tell if more Nigerians are getting involved in the drug trade, or if the agency has gotten better at making arrests.

Mr. Ofoyeju, however, confirmed that the installation of digital body scanners in the country’s four international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt has aided these arrests. The arrests also show that Nigerians claiming to come from the south east are more involved in the trade.

For the past one year, eight of every ten drug couriers arrested have been from the South-East zone of the country. “Those from the South West go mostly to London,” he said. “Aside ingesting, which is swallowing, those that ‘pack’ are mostly Yorubas.
They ‘pack’ drugs in their luggage, foodstuff, baby food, and all of that. Those that ‘swallow’ are mostly Igbo, and they prefer European countries. Edo State indigenes prefer Italy, and they ‘swallow’; some insert drugs in their vaginas. The scanning unearths all of these, though.”

Roadblocks to success
The agency said it has had to cope with barely adequate funding. Like other Nigerian crime busting outfits, it has sometimes relied on foreign counter narcotics assistance to Nigeria. Since February 2001, the United States financial support for Nigeria’s drug war stood at $3 million. According to the United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, this includes payment for the digital body scanners at Nigeria’s airports.

The agency’s officers also have to deal with bad eggs within their ranks. It had to deal with a major scandal in 2005, when confiscated drug exhibits were substituted with fake substances.
Added to these are the failings of other components of Nigeria’s justice system. Critics say the agency’s 1990-2008 prosecution ratio of 14,723 convictions against 280 acquittals mainly traps clueless mules, and not the established drug lords they represent. The big shots remain faceless, merely counting their losses and recruiting new couriers.

Quite like the highly controversial Gloria Okon case in 1985, recently, a drug mule was arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and convicted in 2006. He was re-arrested three months later, trafficking drugs at the Kano International Airport. Investigations revealed a total of 197 such cases within two years.

In February, the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency’s chief executive, Ahmed Giade, called on the National Assembly to “look at the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency Act again in order to provide commensurate convictions seen in other countries.”

Mr. Ofoyeju, however, said the well-connected jail evasion syndicate had been smashed.
“Our investigations revealed that no National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency staff was involved,” he said. “The two staff of the Federal High Court and ten staff of the Nigerian Prisons Service indicted are currently being tried at the Magistrate Court in Ebute Metta.”

Casualty figures
Though some cocaine refined in West Africa has been seized here, with its users to be found in Nigeria’s larger cities, cannabis remains the most abused drug nationwide, as it is cultivated in commercial quantity in the country.

As with the rest of the world, when drugs and money meet, violence is sure to follow. Last Thursday, two agency officials were killed in an ambush in Kwale Local Government Area, Delta State on their way to work. The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency “Hall of Fame” also shows that a third of its officials who died in active service were mobbed by angry supporters of about-to-be arrested hemp dealers nationwide.
Some have died in shoot-outs and accidents, with one official killed by the father of a drug suspect. Since 1999, the whereabouts of five officers, kidnapped whilst making drug busts, remains unknown.

Mr. Ofoyeju, however, said enlightenment is crucial to the fight against drugs. If the general public appreciates the damage caused by illicit drugs, they would be better partners in the agency’s fight against drug dealers, he said. He also expressed hope that the salaries for the agency’s 3, 500 employees will be “improved upon”.