Book Review: ‘Far From Home’ by Hope Idani

‘Far From Home’, like many of its counterparts is a glimpse into a local aspect of the global human trafficking and modern-day slave trade.

The second of author Hope Idani’s publication after ‘Breaking The Silence’, the 101 paged book published by Chapuga Publishers in 2024, is an anecdotal manual of sorts, that is devoid of the density of numbers and unnecessary texts, with enough storied parts to sustain readers’ interest.

‘Far From Home’ aims at educating Nigeria’s unsuspecting populace on the baiting practices deployed by traffickers to isolate and kidnap their victims. He also provides a glimpse into the terrifying, illegal acts and brutal realities trafficked persons are subjected to far away from their homes and loved ones.

This is done through second-person testimonies of survivors such as Ode, Luther, and Adiya among others. Idani highlights the trafficker’s modus operandi, exposing the deplorable state of living of the trafficked, who are forced to live as pieces of merchandise for their ‘owners’ or ‘masters’ who had either outrightly kidnapped or bought them, or pried them from their kins under false promises of a better life away from their homes.

The text as touted by the Technical Advisor of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Cornelius Dabiet Yonpan goes beyond highlighting the scourge and criticizing the government, to accounting for the impact of the government’s crackdown on traffickers.

An effort that led to the sentencing of traffickers – Mr Oleru, Madam Emem, Alhaji Adigun, and his wife, Oga Bolaji, among other traffickers to life-long sentences on the grounds of criminal conspiracy, inducing procurement of persons for sexual exploitation, culpable homicide, forced labor, rape, trafficking in slaves, procurement of minor girls, and the buying and selling of minors for immoral purposes.

While the above is a drop in the ocean of modern-day slave trade, human trafficking, and its often-related organ harvesting crime in the country, such wins give the front-line fighters and ordinary Nigerians hope to keep up the fight.

‘Far From Home’ is a great read with a lot of lessons for the young and the old. Early exposure of children to the ever-evolving strategies of human traffickers within and outside the country can only be beneficial.