An elderly man who was accused of child trafficking along Pschiatric Hospital Road at Rumuigbo, in Port Harcourt has been absolved of the crime by some of his past acquaintances, while others insisted he should be investigated further.
The matter which became a subject of interest came to the fore when the elderly man reportedly drove about nine children in a bus. The whole event sparked suspicion when onlookers noticed a bus parked by the side of the road with children at the back of the bus looking helpless.
An unconfirmed report stated that the accused man left the children in the bus while he went in search of a auto-mechanic to fix a fault in the bus. The report added that the children were noticed sweating in the bus and that some of them appeared fagged out. The children were said to have been easily noticed from the back doors which were without windows.
Further investigation by the National Network revealed that as crowd gathered around the bus, the driver of the said bus was seen coming, just then the mob action took place. They accused the old man of trafficking in person and taking advantage of minors.
“The man tried to explain to the restive crowd that he was travelling with his grand children when his bus developed a mechanical fault,” said an eye witness who alleged that the man was accused wrongly.
According to him, the matter later got to the notice of the police station from Kala police station.
But, some of the commercial taxi drivers along Pschiatric Road, Rumuigbo, claimed to know the man. One of them, a member of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, who pleaded anonymity said he was certain that the man would not have anything to do with the allegation of child kidnapping.
”I know him; he was a taxi driver in this place some years back. The children concerned are his grandchildren.
“If you were here, you would have heard the children defending him as their grand pa. In fact, he was returning the children to their parents when his bus broke down. But since the police have come in I believe it is better than jungle justice. I believe they would release him without delay. ”
Meanwhile, the Kala police division was said to have assured of proper investigation of the matter.
