NAPTIP hails jailing of human trafficker for 18 years

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons has hailed Thursday’s judgment by a Benin High Court sentencing a human trafficker to 18 years’ imprisonment.
Nduka Nwanwenne, the Benin Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, made the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Benin on Friday.
Nwanwenne said that the judgment would serve as a deterrent to human trafficking and other crimes.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga sentenced one Henry Omoike, 43, to a total of 18 years’ imprisonment without an option of fine.
The judge convicted Omoike, a resident of 18 Eyobor Street, off Uwelu Road, Benin-City, on a five-count charge.
The judge held that the convict recruited a teenage school dropout from Benin for prostitution in a bar in Mali.
The other counts are facilitating activity for trafficking in persons, exporting a person from Nigeria, organising foreign travels which promote prostitution and tampering with prosecution.
The convict will, however, spend five years in prison as the sentences for the various counts would run concurrently.
Nwanwenne said that NAPTIP had zero tolerance for human trafficking.
The zonal manager quoted the Director-General of NAPTIP, Julie Okah-Donli, as also commending the judgment.
According to Nwanwenne, the director-general advised human traffickers to engage in legitimate means of livelihood instead of exploiting the future of children and youths, to avoid the wrath of the law.