Ogun Police Arrest Man For Allegedly Trafficking Wife To Mali For Prostitution, Selling Son For N600,000

Ogun State Police Command has arrested a man for allegedly trafficking his wife and two-year-old son to Mali.

Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi, identified the suspect as Kingsley Essien.

He was nabbed for selling his son for N600,000 while trafficking his wife out of the country for prostitution.

The statement issued on Thursday reads in part;

The suspect was arrested following the report lodged at Agbara divisional headquarters by his wife, Bright Essien, who reported that sometime in October 2021, her husband, Kingsley Essien, informed her that he had secured a job for her in Bamako Mali and that he has assisted many people to that country for greener pastures before.

She explained further that being her husband, she didn’t suspect any foul play until she got to Mali only to discover that she has been sold to a human trafficker cartel headed by a woman at the rate of One million four hundred thousand naira.

Oyeyemi said that while in Mali, the suspect’s wife was forced into prostitution, but later found her way to the Nigeria embassy in Bamako where she was assisted back to Nigeria.

The police spokesman explained that on getting to the country from Mali, Bright discovered that her son who was in the care of the suspect was nowhere to be found.

After lodging the report, the Divisional Police Officer in the Agbara division, Abiodun Salau, dispatched his detectives to go after the suspect and he was eventually arrested.

Upon interrogation, Oyeyemi said the suspect confessed to the commission of the crime, admitting that he sold the boy to somebody at the rate of N600,000.

While reacting to the arrest, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Lanre Bankole, ordered the transfer of the suspect to the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Labour Unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation.

This is even as he ordered that the buyer of the son must be traced and arrested in order to recover the stolen child.