Ex-Niger Republic PM, Wife accused of human trafficking in Nigeria

A former Prime Minister of the Republic of Niger, Hama Amodou and his wife Hazida Hama have been accused of human trafficking in Nigeria.

The couple’s were said to have adopted two kids who were allegedly smuggled into Nigeria but were arrested in Sokoto few days ago by the Nigeria Immigration Service.

According to a source, the wife of the sacked Prime Minister was said to have been in detention at the office of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), in the nation’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

All efforts by The Daily Times to reach the service on the issue could not yield as repeated calls and text messages sent to the Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede did not yield any response.

The 68 year old Nigerien has also being linked with several other cases of kidnapping and smuggling of innocent children to Nigeria; highly placed sources at the Nigerian Immigration Service revealed.

In a confidential information, a source said the indiscriminate smuggling of innocent children to Nigeria has been a subject of investigation but there was no will to stop it.

The source explained that the bubble burst in Sokoto about a week ago when two of the kids were spotted wondering around a community having lost their way home.

Preliminary investigation showed that the children were said to have been adopted by Amodou, a system he uses to beat authorities.

Amodou who has since fled to France on exile, used his wife who is currently in detention in the Republic of Niger to perfect the illegal adoption. Despite being in France on exile, until the wife was arrested, she was carrying out the adoption and many of the kids usually get trafficked overseas.

Available information indicated that the children, whose names have not been made public, were brought into Nigeria through Sokoto State by a foreign diplomat of the sacked Prime Minister to Cameroon. The name of the diplomat was given as Alhaji Tati.

The a Daily Times gathered that the idea of bringing the two adopted children of Amodou to Nigeria was to obtain Nigerian passports for them, where they could be enrolled in schools in Nigeria.

She allegedly recruited a syndicate group which engaged in procurement of Nigerian international passport trafficking Nigerian children from Sokoto. Some of the suspects , including the woman are currently being detained at the Airport Immigration detention.

Hama Amadou was Prime Minister of Niger from 1995 to 1996 and again from 2000 to 2007. He was also Secretary-General of the National Movement for the Development of Society (MNSD-Nassara) from 1991 to 2001 and President of the MNSD-Nassara from 2001 to 2009.

Amadou is from the Kurtey, a Fula sub-group, and was raised in the Tillaberi Region, in the Niger River valley, North of Niamey.

As a result of corruption allegations against his government, he was removed from office as Prime Minister through a 2007 no-confidence vote in the National Assembly.

In 2008, he became the target of a corruption investigation which saw him arrested to face criminal charges at the Nigerien High Court of Justice and removed from his post as MNSD President.

Amadou fled Niger in August 2014 to escape arrest on charges related to a child-trafficking investigation. Upon those charges, Amadou was sentenced to one year in prison, in March 2017, by the Niamey Court of Appeals.

He was however tried in absentia, since he was exiled in France.

The Daily Times recalls that the wife of the sacked Prime Minister was also sentenced to years of imprisonment which she is serving presently in the Republic of Niger.

As at the time of going to press, no statement has been made on the two children of the sacked Prime Minister of Niger that were intercepted in Sokoto, as officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service are keeping sealed lips.

Though it was learnt that the Nigerian minister of Interior, General Abdulrahman Dambazau has formally presented the matter to President Muhammadu Buhari for a diplomatic solution but, for proper clarifications, neither the Interior minister nor Babandede has responded to repeated enquiries.