A Ghanaian court has sentenced a 29-year-old Nigerian, Chukwudi Nwachukwu, to 10 years in prison for trafficking his younger sister and nine other young Nigerian girls to Ghana under the guise of offering them restaurant jobs.
What started as a promise of decent employment turned into a grim tale of deception, abuse, and exploitation across borders.
According to court proceedings, Nwachukwu personally financed the transportation of the 10 girls from Nigeria, working with unidentified accomplices who recruited the victims from rural areas. Upon their arrival in Ghana, he kept them at Liberia Camp near Kasoa, where he forced them to swear oaths before a shrine after cutting their pubic hair.
Prosecutor Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Isaac Babayi told the court that Nwachukwu warned the victims that they would develop incurable skin diseases if they ever defied him or tried to escape. Each girl was also given waist beads from the shrine as a form of spiritual control.
The victims were later moved to Odorkor, a suburb of Accra, where they were compelled to engage in sex work and made to pay Nwachukwu GH₵300 daily from their earnings. Police investigations revealed that he kept detailed records of their daily income in an exercise book.
The case came to light when Chief Calistus Eloziepuwa, a member of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) in Ghana, reported the matter to authorities and helped rescue the victims. Following the report, the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the Ghana Police arrested Nwachukwu on June 7, 2024.
At the Achimota Circuit Court, Judge Akosua Anokyewaa Adjepong found Nwachukwu guilty on two counts of human trafficking. Although he pleaded for leniency as a first-time offender, the judge stressed that the gravity and rising prevalence of human trafficking demanded a tough sentence.
He was handed 10 years’ imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently, and ordered to pay GH₵15,000 compensation to each of the ten victims.
The case serves as a chilling reminder that human trafficking often hides behind familiar faces — and underscores the importance of vigilance and community involvement in exposing such crimes.
