{"id":3529,"date":"2014-12-06T07:58:01","date_gmt":"2014-12-06T07:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3529"},"modified":"2014-12-06T07:58:01","modified_gmt":"2014-12-06T07:58:01","slug":"child-trafficking-pastor-2-nurses-14-others-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3529","title":{"rendered":"Child trafficking: Pastor, 2 nurses, 14 others arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"prison-jail\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Seventeen per\u00adsons includ\u00ading a pastor of one of the new generation churches have been arrested by operatives of the De\u00adpartment of State Se\u00adcurity (DSS), Anambra State Command for child trafficking and kidnapping.<\/p>\n

The suspects who also in\u00adcluded an evangelist and two nurses bowed in shame as they were paraded yesterday at the DSS state headquar\u00adters, Awka.<\/p>\n

Raiding the suspects\u2019 hide out, the DSS had rescued three children: three-year-old Chinonso Oriuwa, two-year-old Chidera Abiara and his seven-month-old sister Chi\u00adnasa Abiara all of who were taken away from their par\u00adents by the suspects.<\/p>\n

Out of the 17 arrested suspects, three are males; Pastor Chinuru Martins from Umuahia in Abia State, Solo\u00admon Loveday Nwadinobi from Umuahia and Chiko Chima Ogu from Obowu in Imo state.<\/p>\n

The females are, Nnena Ogbonna Nwachukwu from Bende in Abia state, Eu\u00adnice Tochukwu Uwakwe from Obowu, Glory Nnen\u00adnaya Okwara, a nurse from Arochukwu, Felicia Ebeh (Mbaise) and Esther Eleanya (Abiriba).<\/p>\n

Others are, Ifeoma Iwu (Obowu), Anurika Theophi\u00adlus, Osisioma in Abia state, Evangelist Adora Nwaneri, from Orlu in Imo state, Loveth Nwankwo (Isiala Ngwa in Abia) and Comfort Charity Ononuju.<\/p>\n

Speaking to newsmen while parading the suspects, the State Director of DSS, Mr. Alex Okeiyi, stated that in recent times there had been rampant cases of miss\u00ading children noting that many churches and their pastors were involved in the busi\u00adness, which he said has be\u00adcome a source of worry to both the society and security agencies.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cThis is beyond child trafficking, it is pure kidnap and they will be handed over to the relevant authorities for further action\u201d<\/p>\n

Okeiyi explained that the 17 persons arrested were made up of some members of the syndicate and buy\u00aders of the children, stressing that the operation was carried out by his command in col\u00adlaboration with the Abia state command of the Service and men of the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Asa in Abia state.<\/p>\n

He further explained that Nnenna Nwachukwu who is a neighbor to the parents of two of the children was al\u00adleged to have masterminded the kidnap of Chidera and Chinasa Abiara from their mother Chinonso on Sep\u00adtember 2, 2014 at Uli in Ihi\u00adala local government area of Anambra state.<\/p>\n

The mother of the children was alleged to have been in\u00adjected with a substance with her legs and hands tied, thus making her oblivious of the incident.<\/p>\n

Narrating what happened Okeiyi said, \u201cAfter that, the children were taken to the kingpin of the syndicate, in Umuahia, Abia State, Eunice Uwakwe and then to Aba where Chidera was sold to a nurse Felicia Ebeh at the rate of N300, 000. Ebeh in turn sold him to Enugu-based Solomon Nwadinobi a trader, at the rate of N670, 000.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, in the same Aba, Chinasa was sold to a female buyer from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at the rate of N650, 000 out of which she paid N550, 000 on the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cChinonso Oriuwa was kidnapped from St. Joseph\u2019s Catholic Church Amakama, Umuahia by the Uwakwe-led syndicate on 26th Octo\u00adber, 2014 and sold to another Aba-based nurse, Glory Ok\u00adwara, who hitherto operated a spurious motherless babies home, Divine Mercy. The price was N470, 000 and Okwara in turn, sold him to Esther Eleanya at the rate of N600, 000.<\/p>\n

\u201cChiko Chima Ogu, a boy\u00adfriend to Eunice Uwakwe who often harbours the kid\u00adnapped children is usually paid commission, depend\u00ading on the rates of purchase, while Anurika Theophilus conducts HIV tests on the babies brought to the mother\u00adless babies home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seventeen per\u00adsons includ\u00ading a pastor of one of the new generation churches have been arrested by operatives of the De\u00adpartment of State Se\u00adcurity (DSS), Anambra State Command for child trafficking and kidnapping. The suspects who also in\u00adcluded an evangelist and two nurses bowed in shame as they were paraded yesterday at the DSS state headquar\u00adters, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strange-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/prison-jail.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-UV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3531,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529\/revisions\/3531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}