A Nigerian lady, Goodness Ifeoma Amobi, and her Ghanaian friend, Sampson Aglah, have been arrested by Ghana security agents in an attempt to traffick three girls to Nigeria at the weekend at Dabala Junction near Sogakope.
The two allegedly lured the unsuspecting victims from Ashanti-Mampong near Kumasi, where they lived under the pretext of engaging them in the Nigerian woman’s splash restaurant in Accra with a monthly wage of GH¢1,000 ($208) per person, reports GNA.
The victims, who are all hairdressing apprentices, are Elizabeth Mawusi Awuku and Esther Foku, cousins, aged 17 and 16 respectively, living with their grandmother and Barikisu Abdulai, 15, also living with her grandmother.
Reliable Police source at Sogakope told the GNA that Aglah, who lives in Ashanti-Mampong introduced Amobi as her friend and told the victims she was recruiting extra hands for her Accra restaurant at a good pay and the victims offered to go.
The source said Sampson advised the girls not to disclose the deal to anyone not even to their grandmothers.
According to the source, at about 1830 hours on Friday, July 6, this year, the suspects left Ashanti-Mampong with the victims to Kumasi, where they boarded a supposedly Kumasi-Accra bound bus, with the travel tickets not shown to the victims.
The source said after midnight, a lady passenger on the bus interacted with the victims revealing to them that they were in the Volta Region going towards the Ghana-Togo border at Aflao.
Alarmed by the narration the lady passenger advised the victims to sneak out of the bus at the next stop to escape having been convinced something was wrong so after a third attempt the girls finally got down at about 0400 hours at Dabala Junction and run into the bush at the blind side of the suspects who were asleep.
The source said when the suspects finally realized the victims were missing, they also got down in search of them, during which the bus left them.
The town folks led the victims to the Customs duty point nearby for their safety after which the local people led by the Assembly Member of the area, Mr. Cephas Aguadze and Customs personnel finally arrested the suspects, who because they were not familiar with the environment were still searching for the victims.
The two, who have since appeared before a Sogakope Circuit Court, pleaded not guilty and have been remanded into police custody by the Court to reappear on a later date.
