The state’s NAPTIP business organization that cooperates with the Ministry of National Services has removed an interstate child trafficking group.
NAPTIP’s chief press officer Vincent Adekoye revealed this in a statement Tuesday, March 25, 2025, saying the operators arrested a female truck driver and six other suspects in Abuja.
According to him, a group that specializes in stealing and trafficking children from a part of Nigeria was arrested while trying to sell a 3-year-old girl stolen from Damaturu, Yube State.
The statement is titled “A road for the interstate human trafficking joint organization, a female arrow and truck driver, a popular cement company driver in Lokoja, and six other members, were arrested for alleged theft and trafficking of children.”
The operation led to the arrest of Hasana Jacob, 33, from the Manga Local Government Area of Plateau State, a truck driver at a popular cement company located in Obajana near Lokoja, Kogi State.
Jacob was arrested while trying to sell the three-year-old girl, allegedly stolen from Damaturu, Yube.
Aisha Suliman, Murtala Tani, Adam Jacob, Aboubacar Ahmed member of the Transport Network was also arrested.
Adekoye said preliminary investigations show that the group specializes in kidnapping children of age and uses branded cement trucks to transport them nationwide to evade suspicion and sell them to unknown buyers, up to N600,000 n600,000 per person.
The gang reportedly operates strategically across states through a network of recruiters and buyers, making it easy to quickly move and dispose of stolen children.
“Since Hasana is a truck driver for the popular cement company, it’s easy for her to steal children at any docks across the country, evade safety checks on the roads, and deliver these stolen children to their gang members anywhere they haven’t noticed,” the statement reads.
“There are strong suspicions that the group has a different role across the country.
“While some members of the trafficking ring hunting and attracting victims to the truck terminal will be taken over by Hasana, others even arranged interested buyers on any docks across the country before the victim arrived, allowing gang leaders to quickly dispose of the stolen child and charge her money.”
NAPTIP Director General Binta Bello responded to the development, describing the incident as a “heerful crime against humanity”, shocked by Jacob’s role in leading the group’s leadership joint organization.
She said in Mr. Josiah Emerole, Director of Research and Program Development, “I feel very sad about the latest arrest. It is painful to note that humans will organize a criminal gang, use the company’s brand tools, transfer from one part of the country to another, and then to another family, steal children belonging to other families and sell them to their motivations, their motivations that they don’t know.
“They brought eternal sorrow and pain to the bank after selling those kids. It was unimaginable, it was an evil act of condemnation.
“It’s even more painful when the arrow of this evil group is a woman who knows maternal pain.”
The Director-General praised DSS for its strong support and collaboration, which she said was crucial to the success of the operation.
She called on other law enforcement agencies and stakeholders to deepen cooperation to protect Nigerian children from the threat of trafficking.
Meanwhile, as the investigation continued, NAPTIP deducted 22 cement trucks used in the illegal operation.
