Top Niger Politician's Wives arrested for Trafficking Nigerian Babies

Abdou Labo and Hama Amadou 

Two wives of prominent Niger Politicians were arrested in Niger for trafficking babies. The babies according to the police arrived Niger from Nigeria via Benin.

The police arrested more than 20 suspects on Monday as part of an international investigation involving police from Nigerian, Benin and Niger. Those arrested were ‘mostly women’ and included one of the wives of Niger’s former prime minister and current parliament speaker Hama Amadou, who is seen as the main challenger to President Mahamadou Issoufou in election due in 2016.

The wife of Niger Agriculture Minister Abdou Labo was also detained the report said.

“The trafficking network is used primarily by couples who are unable to have children,” a source close to the case told AFP.

Health workers and employees at the birth registry office were also detained. Some suspects were referred to the public prosecutor on Wednesday, the police source said.

“Baby factories” — private clinics where young girls sell their newborns to couples who are unable to conceive — are regularly dismantled in Nigeria.

Cases in which mothers give up babies born from rape have been reported at such clinics, but young women facing unwanted pregnancies are more common, according to the Nigerian authorities.

The newborns are sold for several thousand euros — with boys fetching more than girls. The mothers receive around 150 euros ($200).

The impoverished country of Niger has the biggest birth rate in the world, an average of 7.6 children per woman.

In 2012, Niger police uncovered a fake orphanage where babies were sold, some for use in black magic rituals.

Niger is rated by the UN as one of the World’s poorest countries so am not too surprised this is happening but what I will not also be surprised about is, if their accomplices here in Nigeria are wives of politicians too. In fact I will be shocked if their contacts in Nigeria are not wives of politicians.