The Police Command in Ogun on Thursday confirmed the arrest of a 36-year-old man, Kingsley Essien, for allegedly trafficking his wife to Mali and selling his 2-year-old son for N600,000.

The police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi stated this in a statement he made available to newsmen in Ota,Ogun.

Mr Oyeyemi explained that the suspect was arrested following a report lodged at the Agbara Divisional Police Headquarters by the suspect’s wife, Bright Essien.

The wife had reported that sometime in October 2021, her husband, Kingsley Essien, informed her that he had secured a job for her in Bamako, Mali, and that he had assisted many people in the past to travel to that country to seek greener pastures.

She added that being her husband, she did not suspect any foul play until she got to Mali where she discovered that her husband had sold her to a human trafficking cartel headed by a woman at the rate of N1.4 million.

“While in Mali, she was forced into prostitution, but later find her way to the Nigerian Embassy in Bamako where she was assisted back to Nigeria.

“On getting to Nigeria, she discovered that her two-year-old son in care of her husband was nowhere to be found,” she said.

The police spokesman said that the matter was reported to the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Agbara Division, SP Abiodun Salau, who had to detail his detectives to go after the suspect, and he was eventually arrested.

He added that on interrogation, the suspect confessed to the commission of the crime. He also confessed that he sold the two-year-old boy to somebody at the rate of N600,000.

Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, (CP) Lanre Bankole, had ordered the transfer of the suspect to the anti-human trafficking and child labour unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation.

The CP equally ordered the police to track down and arrest the alleged buyer of the boy in order to recover the stolen child.

(NAN)