The monarch expressed the concern of the emirate on Saturday in Kano while addressing newsmen shortly after a meeting with Igbo leaders.
Represented by Dan Malikin Kano, Amb. Ahmad Umar, the first-class traditional ruler said the Emirate would no longer condone abduction and trading of children in the state.
He said the issue has gotten out of hand and that proactive action must be taken to check the ugly trend.
“This ugly trend must stop. We have to rise against it. We will no longer condone a situation whereby our children are kidnapped, and sold and their tribe and religion are changed.
“This illicit act must stop. We have to rise up to check the situation as it is getting out of hand. The situation cannot stop itself, it is we that will make it stop. It happened a few years ago and now it has happened again. Only God knows how many of our children had been kidnapped and sold,” he said.
The Kano State Police Command on December 27, 2023, said it had dismantled a human trafficking syndicate that specialised in the abduction, buying, and selling of minors.
No fewer than nine suspects from the syndicate were arrested, which was operating around Kano, Bauchi, Lagos, Delta, Anambra, and Imo States.
A total of seven children, the majority from Bauchi State, were rescued from the suspects and reunited with their respective parents.
He said the emirate had expressed great disappointment over the abduction of minors, describing the situation as disturbing.
He, therefore, called for stiffer punishment of the perpetrators to serve as a deterrent to others.
The royal father noted that Kano had been accommodating visitors for hundreds of years, stressing that the visitors should not take advantage of the hospitality received by the state to commit crimes.
“Kano, for hundreds of years, has been welcoming visitors and taking them as its sons. Recently we have seen a disturbing and unfortunate incident of rescuing children trafficked to Lagos through Kano.
“The Emir expressed the serious disappointment of Kano and northern Nigeria about the incident and wants to see a lasting solution to the problem,” he said.
In his remarks, the leader of the Igbo community in Kano, Eze Ndigbo, Boniface Igbekwe, also condemned the act and called on authorities to bring the perpetrators to book.
The Eze, who was represented by the Prime Minister of the Igbo Community, Chief Nwaimo Efanyi, said the Igbo community had received the news of the kidnapped children being rescued by the police with shock and disbelief.
He said the entire Igbo community in Kano had dissociated themselves from the suspects and any kind of heinous acts committed in their name, stressing that they are always committed to living peacefully with one another.
“We condemned the act in its entirety, in whatever guise and called for punishment on the perpetrators. We Igbo dissociate ourselves from this criminality. We call for peace with one another,” he stated.
The Eze Ndigbo commended the Kano Police command for dismantling the syndicate and rescuing the victims, urging it not to rest on its resolve until all kidnapped children were rescued.
