The Second Slavery
The world is full of unrelenting demons playing on greed, the green-eyed monster. Satan could not have a better ally than he or she who in the quest for filthy gain reduces fellow humans to animals in order to profit from their pain. Humans are playthings to be used, misused and abused; mere commodities to […]
The world is full of unrelenting demons playing on greed, the green-eyed monster. Satan could not have a better ally than he or she who in the quest for filthy gain reduces fellow humans to animals in order to profit from their pain. Humans are playthings to be used, misused and abused; mere commodities to be traded like frozen fish.
Last week, in my piece, “Our Bad Apples”, I detailed the nefarious exploits of some of our countrymen and women who are misbranding us as a country of fraudsters, gangsters and prostitutes. Today, I want to draw attention to a story that deserves as wide an audience as one could possibly get so as to restore some modicum of dignity to our land and put a dagger to the heart of the monster of impunity.
Recently, some video clips showing how Nigerians were being targeted in Libya made the social media rounds. Libyans were angry that criminal syndicates specialising in trafficking sex slaves were destroying the moral fabric of that troubled country. It is a story of deception, betrayal, callousness, greed, homicide, infanticide, voodoo … in short, it is a story of how raw evil has built a kingdom in plain sight. Thanks to TVC News for highlighting the particular case under reference and my great friend, Wale Adewoyin, who drew my attention to the heart-rending story.
According to Nafisat Omobolanle, an auxiliary nurse, the human trafficking gang that smuggled her to Libya under false pretences is based in Abeokuta, Ogun State. She was introduced to Latifat Sanni whose husband, Alhaji Muritala Sanni was the kingpin of the criminal gang. Muritala and Latifat were based in Libya while Latifat’s mother, Mrs Ebunoluwa Bankole, who was based in Abeokuta, was the local recruiter and coordinator of the Nigerian end of the human trafficking syndicate.
Latifat wanted to emigrate to the United States to work and was asked to pay N500,000 to make her dream come true. Muritala Sanni directed her to meet a link in Kano who would arrange her US travel but in Kano, she was taken along with others in a small car through a perilous journey to Agadez in Niger Republic. Over 500 girls had been assembled there. She witnessed soldiers of the Republic of Niger openly raping many of the girls. From there, she was transported to Gatron where the group was eventually taken to Tripoli, Libya in open pick-up truck at high speed. Some of the human cargo fell along the way but the truck did not stop.
In Tripoli, one Azeez, Alhaji Sanni’s brother, took over and conveyed them to Alhaji Sanni’s den where over 100 other girls, mostly teenage sex slaves, were gathered. Each girl attended to 15 customers a day at 10 dinar (about N1,000) each but all the proceeds went to Alhaji Sanni and his group. A customer who chose to spend the night would pay 50 dinar or about N5,000. The girls were not even well fed.
Most of the girls had been deceived that they were on their way to greener pastures with assurance of jobs in Europe only to end up in Alhaji Sanni’s sprawling brothel in Tripoli. Most of the girls had been sworn to silence at a shrine in Abeokuta before embarking on the journey.
At the slavehouse, a register had been opened where records of sales per girl were kept. Azeez was the sales manager and Alhaji Sanni the CEO and board chairman. The girls were the goods and there was no shortage of customers. Each girl-slave was expected to pay back a minimum of N2 million before being set free. If she became pregnant and incurred abortion expenses, additional charges would be added to the original ransom.
When Alhaji Sanni arrived in Tripoli, he tried to force Nafisat to join the prostitution business but she refused. She also rejected his sexual advances. The other girls had warned her that all the girls who had had sexual relations with Alhaji Sanni were now bed-wetting. Whether that condition was medically or spiritually induced, she could not say. Pregnancy was a crime but customers were not required to wear condoms. Inevitably some of the girls died. In the case of two girls, Joy and Doris whose parents had been calling to find out about their children, Alhaji Sanni reportedly told them that the girls were working with a caucasian boss who didn’t want to be disturbed.
Nafisat Omobolanle discreetly obtained the phone numbers of some of the victims’ relatives. Thus began her crusade to save the girls at all costs and bring Alhaji Sanni and his collaborators to justice.
The President of the Alliance of Rights’ Defenders, Barrister O. J. Akinwale, whose private investigator rescued some of the girls, said Alhaji Sanni was known to the Nigerian embassy in Tripoli, and there were allegations that embassy officials were in cahoots with the human trafficker to the extent that any victim that sought refuge in the embassy was eventually returned to Sanni’s den.
Operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) arrested Latifat Sanni in Abeokuta but she escaped when her thugs overpowered the officials. Barrister Akinwale has urged government to take the trial outside Ogun State for fear that the suspects may use the proceeds of their crime to buy freedom. As at the time of the report, there were still over 500 girls in Sanni’s den in Tripoli waiting to be saved.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade ended in America in 1807 and in the British Empire in 1833. This is 2017 and this second slavery is masterminded by our own kith and kin, a Nigerian selling fellow Nigerians. Why are we so cursed?
If I was the Nigerian president, I would dispatch a couple of the Nigerian Air Force’s C130 Hercules planes to bring home the remaining sex slaves and other stranded Nigerians to begin the long process of rehabilitating them and restoring their humanity.