By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) now has a new Director-General, the presidency announced on Tuesday.
A statement issued on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, in Abuja by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mrs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim.
She was chosen to replace the present occupier of the position, Mrs Julie Okah-Donli, who has been in the position for a while and has taken the agency to enviable heights.
The presidency in the statement said the new head of NAPTIP was a Special Adviser on Strategic Communication to the Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba.
She was also until her new appointment a member of the Nasarawa State Economic Advisory Council and she is well-read.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim as the new Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
“A holder of BSc (Sociology), Masters of Arts (Management) and Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degrees, Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim, hails from Nasarawa State.
“Until her new appointment, she was a member of the Nasarawa State Economic Advisory Council as well as Special Adviser on Strategic Communication to the Minister of State for Education,” Mr Shehu said in the brief statement.
NAPTIP was established in July 2003 by the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2003.
It is an agency of the federal government created to address the scourge of trafficking in persons in fulfilment of the country’s international obligation under the Trafficking in Persons Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Transnational Organized Crime Convention (UNTOC).
The Trafficking in Persons Act 2003 was an outcome of a private member bill sponsored at the National Assembly by the Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), a non-governmental organisation founded by Mrs Amina Titi Atiku Abubakar, the wife of the Vice-President of Nigeria at that time.
The key functions of the agency include to enforce and administer the provisions of the act; co-ordinate and enforce all other laws on trafficking in persons and related offences; and adopt effective measures for the prevention and eradication of trafficking in persons and related offences.
Others include to establish co-ordinated preventive, regulatory and investigatory machinery geared towards the eradication of trafficking in persons; investigate all cases of trafficking in persons including forced labour, child labour, forced prostitution, exploitative labour and other forms of exploitation, slavery and slavery-like activities, bonded labour, removal of organs, illegal smuggling of migrants, sale and purchase of persons; and create public enlightenment and awareness through seminars, workshops, publications, radio and television programmes and other means aimed at educating the public on the dangers of trafficking in persons.
Aduragbemi Omiyale