The Edo State Migration Agency has dismissed allegations suggesting that the agency is involved in extortion by arrested commercial sex workers, drug dealers and traffickers in the state.
The allegation came following a raid last weekend by the Public Safety and Security Department of the agency, where scores of sex workers were arrested.
However, when LEADERSHIP contacted the agency’s director general, Lucky Agazuma, on the allegation of extortion while absolving his agency and officials, it said those arrested were profiled and later released to go.
But the sex workers, on Wednesday, cried out that they were extorted between the sum of N15,000 and N50,000 before they were released.
They claimed they were promised their video would not be posted on the internet, but were shocked that it was shared on social media without their faces covered.
The sex workers showed evidence of receipts of the payment to one Uyinmwen Uyigue, the coordinator of the GRA Hospitality Forum.
According to one of the sex workers, “I am still in shock. I haven’t been able to get myself since last Thursday. Edo State Migration Agency recorded us with a promise not to post the video after collecting N50,000 each, but they went ahead and posted it. I have proof of money paid through POS to them. I was shocked when friends and family members started calling, saying they saw my video on TikTok and Instagram.
Another victim narrated, “On Friday evening, all these migration people raided us at Ihama Street and arrested 30 of us. They detained us at their office and videotaped us with a promise not to publish it after we paid N50,000 each.
“The next thing I knew, my family members saw it and started calling us. My family said I brought shame to them and that they don’t want to have anything to do with me because of the video.”
When contacted, Mr Uyigue confirmed collecting money from four sex workers, but he said the money he collected was fine, paid by the owners of the lodge where the sex workers stay.
He said the lodge owners, under the auspices of the GRA Hospitality Forum, agreed on a fine of N50,000 for any of their girls caught in the street hawking sex.
According to him, “Activities of drug dealers have been a stigma to our businesses. We met with the migration agency, and they proved to us they meant business.
“We met as an Association and decided that any lodge owner whose girl is caught outside will pay a fine of N50,000.
“The money those arrested girls paid was fine from the lodge and not to the Migration Agency.”
On his part, the director general of the migration agency, Lucky Agazuma, said the agency was well funded and would not resort to extorting money from sex workers.
Agazuma said the agency never extorted sex workers but works towards rehabilitating them back into society.
“We have had several engagements with brothel owners. We told them we will not be after their brothel, but they should not bring in underage people into their brothel.
“In our raiding, we discovered that they kept underage girls. Those persons who were involved in this act are in prison, including the native doctor who took them on oath. They also do organ harvesting. Even as I speak to you now, there’s a husband and a wife who just trafficked a little girl to Mali. They are in prison right now.”
