Appreciation

Sometime early in 2013, I was informed in a not too pleasing way that there were some teenage girls from Benin City (20 in number) were roaming the streets of Kumasi-Ghana as prostitutes. My first reaction was that teenagers shouldn’t be addressed as “prostitute” rather they should be seen as been “sexually exploited.” Since we were in Ghana and leaving the very next day with insufficient time to follow through with this report, I appealed to my partner Mr Emmanuel Ametepey of the Youth Advocate of Ghana (YAG) to assist in ensuring that these teenaged girls were rescued.

Almost immediately, he made contacts with the police in Kumasi but since we didn’t have all the details as to where to locate these children, not much could be done. Several trips by the YAG team from their office in Nsawam-Ghana to Kumasi-Ghana yielded no fruitful results. Then I suggested that we try the Nigeria High Commission in Ghana. Our experience in the hands of the Desk Officer is not one that I ever want to recount. He proved to be more difficult than even the police whom we felt were on the pay-roll of the Madammes of these children. This didn’t stop us from continuing our search for these children as we felt that the girls were exposed to a whole lot of hazards which was all too disheartening to bear.

When we finally thought that we were closing in on the whereabouts of these 20 or so teenagers, we were reliably informed that they had been rescued by the police and relocated to an undisclosed location for safety. At this point, we panicked and had to get in touch with a friend and advocate of our cause Dr Princess Olufemi-Kayode (at 10pm). After explaining our predicaments to her, she gave me the telephone number to certain Mr Godwin Morka. She told me to call immediately and that if he doesn’t take my call, I shouldn’t worry that he would return it as soon as he sees it. The following morning, Mr Morka returned my call where I told him our plight with the High Commission and the need for the girls to be rescued. He asked if we had any information where they were but I told him that they had been relocated to an unknown location. He thanked me for the information and assured me that NAPTIP would look into it.

To the YAG Team and I, we had done our best but we were sad that we had no knowledge about the plight of these children. We hoped and prayed that Mr Morka would make good his promise to see that the girls are not only rescued but returned to Nigeria in safe condition. Sometime early last year, I heard that some teenage girls from Ghana had been rescued but none were Edo State indigenes. Well I was pleased that some efforts had been made at rescuing these whether or not they were from Edo State.

One would now wonder why I am writing all this. Well two days ago, I was on the NACCRAN Team that visited the NAPTIP office along with the Representative of UWACC from the Gambia. We were received by Mr Godwin Morka. We had a very fruitful interactive session and there I mentioned this same story all over again. He did confirm the rescue of these teenagers to me. At least it confirmed to me that our effort was not an exercise in futility. As our team took our leave from his office, I gave him my complimentary card. At this point, he told me we were friends on Facebook and properly introduced himself.

I was really pleased to meet him in person as it afforded the opportunity to thank him for returning my call. Not many persons would return calls from an unknown caller. Once again, thank you very much Sir.