The Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Binta Adamu Bello, has said that none of the eight children that were recently rescued from Happy Home Orphanage in Asaba, Delta State, will be released to any claimant until DNA tests and other investigations were completed.
Bello gave the assurance at a media briefing in Abuja on Friday. She said the clarification became necessary following misleading narratives, especially on social media, which portrayed the agency’s lawful operation in June 2025 as an “abduction.”
“We are not for or against anyone making claims over the children now, but they should make themselves available for better investigation,” Bello said. “Be assured that the Agency will not hand over any of the children to any of the claimants until investigations, which include a DNA, are concluded.”
According to her, the rescue mission was triggered by a December 2022 petition from an organisation identified as Protection Against Abduction and Missing Children (PATAMOC), which demanded justice over widespread child abduction cases in Kano State and across Nigeria.
She explained that investigations led to the arrest of one Hauwa Abubakar in Gombe State, who confessed to selling 21 children to a woman, Nkechi Odlyne. Odlyne allegedly supplied seven of the children to Christopher Ogugua Nwoye, proprietor of Happy Home Orphanage, at N450,000 each. The suspects are already facing trial in Gombe State.
Bello recalled that four children were initially recovered from Nwoye, three of whom were identified by their parents. The fourth was later identified by a Kano woman as her missing child, Aisha Buhari. She said the development prompted NAPTIP to dispatch operatives to Asaba in June, accompanied by Kano officials and backed by the Delta State Police Command.
She said the team profiled over 70 children at the orphanage, where eight — including Aisha — were identified and rescued. The children were first kept in the custody of the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs before being moved to a secure NAPTIP shelter following conflicting claims from women in Kano and Delta States.
The NAPTIP boss accused the orphanage proprietor of refusing to submit to interrogation, choosing instead to blackmail the agency and mobilize women to claim the children. She stressed that the agency would only act in line with the law.
She called on the Delta State Government to investigate activities at the orphanage, citing concerns already raised by the state’s Commissioner for Women Affairs.
Bello maintained that NAPTIP’s action was lawful under the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015. She assured that the agency would prosecute anyone found culpable and reunite the rescued children with their lawful families.
