The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons on Tuesday, denied barring investigative journalist, ‘Fisayo Soyombo, from seeing a baby he had rescued from an orphanage home suspected of illicit baby trafficking.
NAPTIP’s Lagos Zonal Commander, Mrs. Comfort Agboko, argued this on Arise News’ flagship programme, The Morning Show, in Lagos on Tuesday.
Agboko said the agency “did not shut him out” but only asked the investigative journalist to “write to NAPTIP for us to facilitate the process of seeing the baby.”
Speaking on Arise News on November 30 after his recent detention and release by the Nigerian Army, Soyombo said he lacked trust in public institutions and alleged that NAPTIP had somehow failed in its duty on the case of baby sales he had reported to the agency in 2023.
He alleged that NAPTIP shut him out and implied that he was not aware of the state of the case or the whereabouts of the baby.
Soyombo also demanded that NAPTIP’s immediate past Director-General, Prof Fatima Waziri-Azi, be made to answer as to the whereabouts of the baby.
Soyombo had been investigating illegal oil bunkering in Nigeria’s oil-rich Port Harcourt, Rivers State when personnel of the Nigerian Army’s 6th Division apprehended him at a bunkering site.
Reminiscing on his ordeal in the Army’s custody, he explained, “The real grouse of the Army is that I did not carry them along. I won’t deny that I have low trust in Nigerian public institutions. A small diversion: Last year, I did an undercover investigation at an orphanage house selling babies. I bought a newborn baby with N2m and took the baby to NAPTIP. I looked after that baby after I handed the baby over to NAPTIP.
“I sent a representative to go there every month. On her birthday, we bought the gift. Same with Christmas. We woke up one day, and NAPTIP shut the door on us. I’m saying it on national TV, the former DG of NAPTIP. She has to answer the question, What happened to that baby? I brought that baby. I just wanted to keep up with the progress of that baby, and one day we just got there, and they said, ‘You can’t see the baby.’
“So, how do you expect someone like me to trust public institutions? Now, I have been vindicated because I spent three days in military detention. Everything I told the highest levels of the Army, the illegal bunkers were telling me when I left.”
But Agboko denied Soyombo’s claim saying, “NAPTIP did not shut him out. What we told him to do was to write to NAPTIP for us to facilitate the process of seeing the baby with the Ministry of Youth and Social Development of Lagos states because they are our partners.
“We operate a closed shelter. So, our shelter doesn’t accommodate babies. It’s for adults. However, we are partnering with the Ministry of Women Affairs in various states of the federation or the Ministry of Youth and Social Development.
“So, in Lagos State, we usually forward these babies to the Ministry of Youth of Social Development, and this particular one was in our shelter for eight months.”
The NAPTIP official further explained that the child turned one year old last February, and “The birthday was celebrated in our shelter, not elsewhere, not in any government shelter, but NAPTIP’s shelter. We celebrated the birthday for her.”
