FCT bursts orphanages trafficking in children

Two orphanages in Jiwa and Tugan Maje in AMAC and Gwagwalada area councils respectively have been shutdown after they were suspected of trafficking children. Mount Mercy and Refugee Ark Ministry, a pentecostal church, which ran the orphanage in Jiwa, was raided last week by the officials of FCT Social Development Secretariat, evacuating 21 children aged […]

Two orphanages in Jiwa and Tugan Maje in AMAC and Gwagwalada area councils respectively have been shutdown after they were suspected of trafficking children.

Mount Mercy and Refugee Ark Ministry, a pentecostal church, which ran the orphanage in Jiwa, was raided last week by the officials of FCT Social Development Secretariat, evacuating 21 children aged between 11 and 15.

When our reporter visited the church-cum orphanage, it was deserted, but learnt that the children were taken to Gwako, where the FCTA has a facility for children.

The Chief of Jiwa, Alhaji Idris Musa, who suspected the church of running an illegal orphanage, raised an alarm which led to the raid.

The chief said when he got security report that the church was operating an illegal orphanage, he asked his palace officials to investigate.

He added that after preliminary investigation, he learnt   that the church was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), but that the orphanage was not.

“In fact, after the discovery, I directed that they should invite the woman and her husband to my palace. They came along with one man that has been living here for almost 20 years.

“I interrogated them on how they came about the orphanage and they admitted that it belonged to them.  I also discovered that the orphanage did not have any genuine land papers either from the area council or the FCDA,” he said.

He said he directed one of the district heads in his chiefdom to find out where the children were brought from and it was discovered that they were mostly from Kogi, Akwa Ibom and some other states.

“When I looked at the woman I sensed that she could not feed herself very well and I wondered how she could feed these 21 children. When I asked her how she fed the children, she said she always got support from members of the church,” he added.

He said, during the raid, the woman and her husband were taken to the FCT Police Command for further interrogation, even as he called on the FCTA to intensify effort towards checkmating activities of illegal orphanage operators in the territory.

Some residents who live close to the church told our reporter that they observed that the children were being brought to the home from outside the FCT by strangers under the pretense that they had lost their parents.

Aso Chronicle noticed that the building housing the orphanage is a two-bedroom flat, first built as the residence of the pastor, before it was converted into the children’s home.

A resident, Mrs. Uzoma Fabian, said she noticed that the children were poorly fed because it was members of the church that contributed money to give the woman in charge of the place to buy food.

“I suspect that the owner of the home has been trafficking the children because how can you operate an orphanage without having what to feed the children with, and most of those children are not even from this community or any community within Abuja,” she said.

Another resident, Abdullahi Usman, said strange persons trooping into the orphanage with children raised suspicion of members of the public who first reported to the police.

“It was as a result of the suspicion that the police were alerted and they came to the place to see things for themselves before the matter was reported to the chief,” he said.

He further said most of the children looked unkempt, and that the man and his wife were only using the church to cover up their illegal operation of the orphanage.

“In fact, we reliably learnt that the woman’s husband has contact with some people outside Abuja who he arranges with to bring some of these children to the home. Aside that, the two-bed apartment was built for the pastor of the church, but we learnt he converted it to an orphanage,” he said.

Similarly, a school, Famous Kids Orphanage Home, Anguwar Zogele in Tungan Maje, Gwagwalada Area Council, was discovered to be operating illegally.

The FCT Social Development Secretariat, however, retrieved the children penultimate week.

Some residents of the area who spoke with our reporter, said the school was established three years ago by a man and his wife, until early in 2018 when the owner of the school built an apartment and named it an orphanage.

They said the operators of the orphanage mostly received children between the ages of 12 to 15 from strange people.

A resident of the area, Ifeanyi Moses, said some people sometimes come to the orphanage and dump the children there.

“The very day  the task force from the FCTA came and raided the place, some parents quickly came and withdrew their children from the school after they found out that the man and his wife were operating an illegal orphanage,” Moses added.