The federal government has lauded the Ghanaian authorities for rescuing not less than 219 young Nigerians trafficked to the country and forced into cybercrimes.

The minister of state for foreign affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

Mrs Odumegwu-Ojukwu spoke against the backdrop of her visit to the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) in Accra, Ghana, where the victims of trafficking were detained.

She also restated the federal government’s commitment to providing the youths with technical education and skills to curb growing unemployment.

The visit was also on the sideline of the inauguration of the 50th anniversary of ECOWAS and the Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers on the withdrawal of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso from the group.

Mrs Odumegwu-Ojukwu lauded the executive-director of EOCO, Bashiru Dapilah for the treatment meted out to the victims.

According to her, trafficking is modern slavery, obnoxious and man’s inhumanity to man, describing it as exploitation of innocent young people, callous and inhuman.

The minister urged Nigerian youths to shun people, who may promise them irresistible job offers outside shores of the country, explaining it might just be bait to lure them into slavery.

She stated that the Nigerian High Commission in Ghana alerted her of the incident and how the victims were held under inhuman conditions by the perpetrators, before the sting operation which exposed the evil syndicate.

“Prior to their rescue, these boys had been locked up in about 25 rooms within the estate where they were used to perpetrate cybercrimes.

“At the time of their arrest, many of them being locked inside confined spaces with computers for weeks on-end without being let outside, were even unable to get their eyes to adjust to the sun when they were led outside those dark rooms.

“Some had been serially abused with visible lacerations inflicted on them by their criminal ‘don’ while one had his legs broken for not tendering all the proceeds of his cybercrime,” Mrs Odumegwu-Ojukwu said.

She urged the trafficked victims to consider themselves lucky to be rescued, saying  that many had lost their lives in similar circumstances, while others rot in jails across the world.

She, therefore, urged the victims to take advantage of this second chance that God had made possible for them by keying into some of the intervention programmes of the federal government.

She quoted Ms Dapilah to have explained how his team acted on intelligence to achieve the feat adding, “We are not looking at this as a Nigerian crime because you have some backing of Ghanaian.

“The estate where they lived, we arrested the owner and he will be prosecuted. We require collaboration between our two countries. The crime is committed here in Ghana, but we know that somebody in Nigeria was behind it.

“So, these persons have been rescued, but the next thing is for the perpetrators to be apprehended.

“As you go home, take the message to our counterpart in Nigeria that we will be needing collaboration to roundup the perpetrators,”he said.

The Ghana anti-graft boss extolled majority of Nigerians in the country, who he said were law-abiding and contributing significantly to the development of Ghana and its economy.

He also thanked the Nigerian High Commission for working closely with the agency, lauding the Chargé D’Affaires, Dayo Adeoye, for collaborating with them.

Mr Adeoye stated that not less than 3 million Nigerians reside in Ghana and they were doing well, helping the economic development of their host country.

According to him, there should be adequate sensitisation against trafficking to tackle the menace involving Nigerians intercepted in Ghana.

He said that no fewer than 231 of them were expected to arrive Lagos on Friday April 25, and handed over to government officials. 

(NAN)