A Federal High Court in Calabar has sentenced Esther Ini Udo and her husband, Eyo Stephen Udo, to 15 years in prison each for trafficking children. The couple was convicted on four counts of buying and selling infants, including the sale of Esther's newborn for N300,000 to a woman named Oluchi Judith, who remains at large. Prosecutors presented evidence that the pair also bought a one-year-old child for N150,000 and resold the child to the same buyer for N400,000. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) secured the conviction under Nigeria's Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015. Justice I. Ojukwu described the crimes as severe human rights violations and upheld guilt on all charges, despite the couple's initial not guilty pleas. Each defendant was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment with an option to pay a N2 million fine, with the sentence effective from April 1, 2026. The court ordered NAPTIP to continue efforts to arrest Oluchi Judith in connection with the trafficking ring.
A mother selling her newborn and a court responding with a sentence five years in the future exposes a disconnect between judicial process and immediate deterrence. The 2026 start date for the sentence undermines the seriousness with which Justice Ojukwu claimed to view child trafficking. For Nigerians witnessing such crimes, the delayed consequence may signal that punishment is more theoretical than real. Until sentences are served without deferment, convictions risk becoming symbolic rather than transformative.
