By Franklin. O.O
Early on Wednesday, April 8, Nigerian activist, critic, and social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), uploaded a disturbing video to his Instagram page. It caused a stir among Nigerians and threatened Abike Dabiri, the Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), with a one-week deadline.
In his well-known video, he disclosed that certain Nigerian children under the age of sixteen have been transported to Ivory Coast, commonly known as the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, for prostitution and other illicit activities. Shortly after, Seun Kuti, also known as Big Bird Kuti, son of the late Nigerian musician and political activist, Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti, who is credited with creating Afrobeat music, conducted an analysis in reaction to VDM’s article.
According to him, the government has ignored the trafficking, and more females will leave if they take action to stop it by returning the girls. In his analysis video, he stated bluntly in both English and Pidgin: “Even if them go comot these girls for there, as one bus dey drive comot, five buses dey enter, na so e go be.”
As stated by VDM in his video exposing this savage act: “Today is my birthday, I don’t care about it, I don’t want to see happy birthday under this post, I just want your attention, thank you, that’s number one. Number two, to Abike Dabiri, the Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora, after this post, I’m giving you one week, exactly one week, to find a solution to this. Exactly one week!
“If after one week, these girls are not back to this country, I’ll give you the biggest problem you have ever seen in your life, I’ll bring the biggest wahala, the biggest problem that the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission has ever seen, I’m giving you one week, Abike Dabiri, one week. Nigerians, let me show you something, take a look at this video,” he added.
After that, VDM shared a video of himself in an Ivorian orphanage with more than ten girls and some Nigerian, in the French-speaking African nation. He spoke Hausa as he approached several of the girls who were crying. After calming them down, he enquired about their whereabouts and methods of trafficking. None of the kids who spoke Hausa were older than thirteen. VDM pledged to use every resource at his disposal to make sure they were reunited with their families.
He flew into Ivory Coast from China after receiving a call from Nigerian leaders there, and that is when the video was taken, on March 27th. VDM says he hasn’t got enough sleep since leaving for Nigeria because the children’s cries are bothering him, and he’s only now realising what trauma is.
He spoke with a group of females under the age of fifteen in a different video in the same post, and they, too, described how they travelled from several Nigerian states to Ivory Coast. Alice, one of the girls, stated that she was from Cross Rivers State and that she got there because her madam had brought her in to sell without her parents’ knowledge.
Wasiu Fatiat, a 15-year-old from Oyo State, is the second. She says she was drugged with simply water and woke up in Ivory Coast after someone volunteered to give her a lift one day while she was returning from school. After becoming more mindful of their surroundings, she also noticed other girls and pleaded with them to help her get home, but they told her that she was there for prostitution, and that’s what brought them all here. She added that she saw a woman who claimed to be her mistress and ordered that she start having sex with guys and send 10,000 naira every day. The woman pushed her to sleep with seven men after giving her condoms.
Another, Tosin Taye Fatai, from Ore, Ondo State, claims that she was brought in to care for infants rather than engage in prostitution. Although her father is aware, she has been fighting abuse from the person who brought her in since she arrived.
Continuing, when questioned, the young Hausa children were unable to name their homes or the reason for their importation; however, an investigation conducted after talking to Niger representatives who visited the orphanage where they are all housed indicates that they were transported from Kano Nigeria,, to Niger before arriving in Ivory Coast.
The orphanage alleges The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has come with some other authorities to make bogus promises on cases like this, and almost nothing has been done.
VDM responded to that, saying: “This message, I’ll try to relate it with the right authorities in Nigeria, using my platform and I hope they listen because if they don’t listen, we will have to do it the hard way, to be honest, because we cannot leave them here and overlook these kids.”
In response, the NIDCOM Chairman posted a reply on her official X account that reads: “How can a so-called social crusader not know there is an agency called Naptip? If there is no ulterior motive you will give the head of another agency who has actually selflessly ensured she did all she could to save souls, a deadline ?? Pls what can that be described as ???? A clear case of human tracking with an agency @naptipnigeria responsible for Traficking in existence ??? And calling out @nidcom_gov. No be juju be that?”
Using another video on his Instagram page, Kuti replied to her tweet by asking if she is not the Head of the department that manages all Nigerians in Diaspora, even if VDM had misidentified her because it wasn’t directly under her office. If she is not fully responsible as claimed, she has a responsibility to contact the appropriate authorities, he continued. Body like the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) should not be left out of the issue because it is their sole responsibility to monitor what and who goes in and out of the country.
To the NCS involvement, he had this to say: “If na one bag of rice dey pass through that place now, you go see 12 Custom cars. Just take one bag of rice now, pass that border if you no go see almost 13 Customs go come outside with motor begin pursue you, but a whole children can be passing.”
He restated his opinion that one bus would bring in the females and five buses would take more of them away. In closing, he stated that since all other government agencies claim that NAPTIP is the only agency affected, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria, Nigerian Ambassador to Ivory Coast and others should stand by and watch Nigerians suffer abuse in Ivory Coast.
