Woman admits receiving ₦370,000 in child trafficking case, as another says church acquaintance recruited her to pick up street children for her ‘orphanage’

A woman identified as Rose David has recounted how she was recruited to pick up children found roaming the streets after a woman she met at a church told her she ran an orphanage and would compensate her for bringing in children.

David, 47, disclosed in a video shared by TV Platinum, in which she described how she met a woman she identified as Madame Nkechi at a Dunamis church in Lube.

According to David, the woman gave her a phone number and asked if she would work with her by bringing children she found wandering the streets to the purported orphanage.

“She asked me if I could work with her. If I see any child roaming around the street, I should pick her. She said she has an orphanage and that I should bring the child, and she would compensate me,” David said.

She claimed that she had taken only one child under the arrangement and that the child had since been recovered.

David also said the woman presented the arrangement as an effort to help vulnerable children, claiming that she had government approval and facilities where the children could receive an education.

“She said it was only children roaming around the streets who had nobody to help them. She said she had a school and could train them,” David said.

She added that she had considered the arrangement trustworthy enough that she might have taken her own child there if the child had still been young.

However, the interview raised questions about the circumstances surrounding her involvement and her relationship with the other people mentioned in the case.

David said she had met the woman the previous year and had been remanded in prison in connection with the matter. She explained that she was later allowed to go home after attending court proceedings several times, saying the complainant had failed to appear.

She did not say in the interview that she had been convicted, and the circumstances of her release were not independently established in the video.

In a separate interview shared by TV Platinum 1, another woman identified as Joy admitted receiving ₦370,000 from a woman she identified as Madame Nkechi but denied bringing the child at the centre of the case.

Joy, who said she was from ‘Congo State’, distanced herself from the specific incident, insisting that she was not the person who took the child.

“I’m not the one. I didn’t know when she told you,” she said, adding that she did not know where the child had been taken from before being brought to Onitsha.

When questioned about her own involvement, Joy said she had previously accompanied another woman to meet Madame Nkechi.

She initially denied being involved in bringing children but acknowledged receiving money during an earlier encounter.

“The first time I followed them to Nkechi’s place, Nkechi gave me ₦370,000,” Joy said.

Asked what the money was for if she had not brought a child, Joy maintained that another woman was responsible for taking the child.

The interview did not establish why Joy received the money or whether the payment was connected to the alleged trafficking of children.

The two interviews raise questions about the activities attributed to the woman identified as Madame Nkechi, including the claim that she presented the collection of children from the streets as a way to provide them with care and education.

David's account suggests that she believed the arrangement was legitimate because of the assurances she said she received about the orphanage and its government approval.

However, the interviews alone do not establish whether the alleged orphanage was registered or authorised to receive children, how many children may have been involved, or the full circumstances of the case.

The identities and roles of the people mentioned, the status of any criminal proceedings and the authorities' findings were not independently confirmed from the videos.