Edo State APC describes the jailing of one of its aspirants in the UK for trafficking as unfortunate

NIGERIA'S ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) described as unfortunate the conviction of its former Edo State House of Assembly aspirant Josephine Iyamu who was found guilty of human trafficking by a court in the UK.

Ms Iyamu, 51, a UK-based nurse from Edo State, was recently convicted on five counts of arranging or facilitating travel for sexual exploitation at Birmingham Crown Court. She was jailed for 14 years by the Birmingham Crown Court for trafficking five Nigerian women to Germany for prostitution after subjecting them to voodoo rituals.

She was reported to be a ring leader of an international human trafficking network, which used a witch-doctor to convince her victims that they were under her control and exploited them. Ms Iyamu was also reported to have charged each of her victims between €30,000 and €38,000 to arrange for their travel to Europe.

Days after she was reportedly jailed, a campaign poster, portraying her as an Edo State House of Assembly aspirant, under the APC, went viral on the Internet. The poster with her name spelt out as Mrs Sandra Josephine Imaghodor , showed that she aspired to represent Egor Constituency in the House, with a mission to inspire support for the empowerment of women and family.

Reacting to the development, the APC said it was unaware of the fact that she was a human trafficker. Anselm Ojezua, the chairman of the Edo State chapter of the APC said that the party was committed to tackling human trafficking.

He added: “Although the name in the online report is not the same as we have it, the person appears to be the same, particularly when she was introduced as a nurse. We see her conviction as an unfortunate situation, in terms of the party and the government’s stance on human trafficking, sex slavery and others.

“We know her to be a registered nurse in the UK but one did not know that she was engaged in any other business other than her profession. She did express an interest in contesting but she did not contest eventually."

Asked whether the party’s state chapter would take any disciplinary action against the convict, Mr Ojezua, said Ms Iyamu was already convicted and serving a jail term outside the country. Ms Iyamu is the first person to be convicted under Modern Slavery Act laws passed in 2015, allowing prosecutions of British citizens for overseas sexual trafficking.

During her trial, the court was told how Ms Iyamu made her victims partake in rituals that forced the women to eat chicken hearts, drink blood containing worms and have powder rubbed into cuts. Ms Iyamu declared a modest income of around £14,500 in 2016/17 from her work as a National Health Service agency nurse but after her arrest last year investigators found she was able to afford to spend thousands on air travel and a large home in Benin City, the Edo State capital.