Some power-drunk officers of the Department of State Services have stopped a 66-year-old Nigerian woman, Bolanle Adeoye, from travelling to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, because she granted an interview to SaharaReporters in which she spoke about her ordeal with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
SaharaReporters learnt on Sunday that the NAPTIP had already dismissed allegations levelled against her and she was cleared to travel but for the power-drunk DSS men who insisted she was going nowhere.
The overzealous DSS personnel are identified as Kuti and Olakunle.
SaharaReporters on February 15 reported that the woman was stopped from boarding a Dubai-bound flight at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on February 4 while going to visit her daughter, who recently had a baby.
Adeoye was denied from taking the trip and further subjected to psychological and emotional trauma for simply bearing the same name as a wanted person on NAPTIP’s watch list.
Since being stopped from travelling to Dubai earlier this month, the 66-year-old woman has been left confused about what her fate is.
The Ibadan-based woman’s ordeal began in 2018 when she first visited her daughter in Dubai and was returning to Nigeria weeks later.
She was held by DSS officials at the time for bearing the same name as a notorious child trafficker they had been searching for since 2010.
After being grilled at the airport by some personnel of the secret police, Adeoye was thereafter moved to the NAPTIP office in Lagos for further interrogation and traumatising treatment.
She was accused of escaping from police custody in 2010 before later trafficking two young ladies to Lebanon that same year.
All the explanation the woman gave to prove her innocence was rubbished and ignored by NAPTIP officials, who soon seized her travel documents before ordering the DSS to detain her.
For the following 11 days, Adeoye was held in a dingy cell at a DSS facility in Ikoyi, Lagos, totally cut off from her children and other family members.
SaharaReporters learnt on Sunday that the NAPTIP cleared her in a letter titled, “LETTER OF CLEARANCE” dated February 23, 2022.
“Bolanle Adeoye, Born November 22, 1965; I am directed to inform any concern (sic) government individual that sequel to the outcome of thorough investigation concerning the above-named subject, the agency has dismissed the case against Mrs Bolanle Adeoye.
“Attached is a copy of De-watch listing letter sent to the Director-General, Department of State Service dated February 15, 2022. With this clearance, you are kindly requested to accord Mrs Bolanle ADEOYE the needed courtesies,” Aganran Ganiu Alao, the NAPTIP Zonal commander signed for the NAPTIP DG.
SaharaReporters learnt that the DSS despite the clearance letters would not let the woman travel to Dubai.
“She has been held again at the airport. The DSS boldly stated that she’s not going anywhere because SaharaReporters intervened for her to get the clearance letters from NAPTIP. Presently she’s in Lagos airport after rescheduling to perfect all documents for another flight to Dubai,” a source said.
“I was held for 11 days, wearing only one set of clothes throughout that period in 2018 after DSS arrested me on my way back from Dubai at the airport in Lagos for bearing the same name with a wanted human trafficker,” the distraught woman told SaharaReporters, almost breaking down in tears. “When we got to NAPTIP, it was discovered that DSS officials had changed the statement I gave. They presented another indicating that I admitted to being a human trafficker, that I indeed took two girls to Lebanon.
“While being held at the DSS facility, I was not allowed to use my drugs for high blood pressure despite how bad my health was at the time. I appealed to them to allow me to speak with my children; they told me that I would be informed whenever any of them visited but they never did.
“Meanwhile, my children came to that place every day but they prevented them from seeing me, making me think that my family had abandoned me.
“One of the DSS commanders even told me to prepare to go to jail, that prison was meant for humans and that I should not be afraid, that my children would wait for me while I served my jail term. He said these words to me despite not committing any crime,” she had said.
But if Adeoye thought that her bitter ordeal at the hands of NAPTIP and DSS officials was over after that traumatic experience, she was wrong.
Apart from being held again by the secret police at the Lagos airport earlier this month (February) on her way to visit her daughter in Dubai, NAPTIP officials further humiliated and traumatised her for the same reason they held her three years ago, for which she was later absolved.
