34-year-old prophetess jailed for child trafficking

By SHOJOBI ABISOLA

A 34-year-old prophetess identified as Esther Edet Asuqu has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for buying and selling two children for five hundred thousand naira.

It was gathered that Esther and her accomplice, Blessing Akudo Sunday were both sentenced to 14 years imprisonment each.

Justice Okon Okon, the presiding judge who handed down the judgment said the suspects on September 2013, and others now at large, committed a felony, by child buying and selling, contrary to Section 28 (1) and (2) of Akwa Ibom State Child Rights Law, 2008.

According to reports, the prophetess and Sunday were standing trial with a 72-year-old visually impaired Osueoluka Okoye, however, the court discharged and acquitted him over the inability of the prosecution to prove the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.

The court held that “there is no evidence that the third accused gained financially for his role in the child dealing racketeering.”

Justice Okon found the prophetess and Sunday, guilty of unlawfully removing and taking away two siblings without their parents’ consent and selling them in Abia and Anambra states.

“The evidence adduced at the trial which the Court accepts as the truth is that, the father of the children went to the house of the estranged wife and took the children away. No matter how sentimentally persuasive and emotionally laden this argument may be, the fact remains that the two children were with their father when the father handed them over to the first and second accused persons,” he said. (Daily Independent)