NAPTIP Withholds 8 Children From Claimants Pending DNA Test

The Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking successful Persons (NAPTIP), Binta Adamu Bello, has said that nary of the 8 children that were precocious rescued from Happy Home Orphanage successful Asaba, Delta State, volition beryllium released to immoderate claimant until DNA tests and different investigations were completed.

Bello gave the assurance astatine a media briefing successful Abuja connected Friday. She said the clarification became indispensable pursuing misleading narratives, particularly connected societal media, which portrayed the agency’s lawful cognition successful June 2025 arsenic an “abduction.”

“We are not for oregon against anyone making claims implicit the children now, but they should marque themselves disposable for amended investigation,” Bello said. “Be assured that the Agency volition not manus implicit immoderate of the children to immoderate of the claimants until investigations, which see a DNA, are concluded.”

According to her, the rescue ngo was triggered by a December 2022 petition from an organisation identified arsenic Protection Against Abduction and Missing Children (PATAMOC), which demanded justness implicit wide kid abduction cases successful Kano State and crossed Nigeria.

She explained that investigations led to the apprehension of 1 Hauwa Abubakar successful Gombe State, who confessed to selling 21 children to a woman, Nkechi Odlyne. Odlyne allegedly supplied 7 of the children to Christopher Ogugua Nwoye, proprietor of Happy Home Orphanage, astatine N450,000 each. The suspects are already facing proceedings successful Gombe State.

Bello recalled that 4 children were initially recovered from Nwoye, 3 of whom were identified by their parents. The 4th was aboriginal identified by a Kano pistillate arsenic her missing child, Aisha Buhari. She said the improvement prompted NAPTIP to dispatch operatives to Asaba successful June, accompanied by Kano officials and backed by the Delta State Police Command.

She said the squad profiled implicit 70 children astatine the orphanage, wherever 8 — including Aisha — were identified and rescued. The children were archetypal kept successful the custody of the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs earlier being moved to a unafraid NAPTIP structure pursuing conflicting claims from women successful Kano and Delta States.

The NAPTIP brag accused the orphanage proprietor of refusing to taxable to interrogation, choosing alternatively to blackmail the bureau and mobilize women to assertion the children. She stressed that the bureau would lone enactment successful enactment with the law.

She called connected the Delta State Government to analyse activities astatine the orphanage, citing concerns already raised by the state’s Commissioner for Women Affairs.

Bello maintained that NAPTIP’s enactment was lawful nether the Trafficking successful Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015. She assured that the bureau would prosecute anyone recovered culpable and reunite the rescued children with their lawful families.