NIAMEY (AFP) – The head of parliament in Niger
will be interrogated as part of a probe into
international baby-trafficking, sources said on
Wednesday.
Hama Amadou is suspected of “complicity” in
the trafficking of babies born in Nigeria and
trafficked into Niger via Benin.
But Amadou, who is considered the leading
challenger to President Mahamadou Issoufou
ahead of elections in 2016, has denounced the
charges as politically motivated and said it would
involve a breach of his parliamentary immunity.
One of Amadou’s wives is among the 17 people,
including 12 women, already arrested in the case
since June.
“We think that for the honour and respectability
of our institution, he must make himself
available to the judicial authorities,” said
Mohamed Ben Omar, a member of parliament’s
political bureau, which authorised the
investigation into Amadou.
“We must not risk breaking the equality of
citizens before the law. In the same case,
Nigerians are languishing in prison for months,”
he said.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have taken this
difficult decision, but we consider that it’s our
duty,” added Daouda Mallam Marthe, a vice-
president of the National Assembly with the
ruling Niger Party for Democracy and Progress
(PNDS).
- ‘Baby factories’ -
The opposition has denounced the investigation
as a breach of parliamentary rules, which do not
allow “an office of the National Assembly to
deliver a deputy to justice or to have him
arrested,” said Tidjani Abdoulkadri, of the
Democratic and Social Convention party.
Hama Amadou is reportedly planning to appeal
to the Constitutional Court to look into the
legality of the order.
The alleged crime involves forging and altering
birth certificates to switch the names of
mothers.
Agriculture Minister Abdou Labo, a wife of
Amadou, was arrested on Saturday.
“The trafficking network is used primarily by
couples who are unable to have children,” a
source close to the case told AFP earlier this
year.
“Baby factories” — private clinics where young
girls sell their newborns to couples who are
unable to conceive — are regularly uncovered in
Nigeria.
Cases in which mothers give up babies born
from rape have been reported at such clinics,
but young women facing unwanted pregnancies
are more common, according to the Nigerian
authorities.
The newborns are sold for several thousand
euros — with boys fetching more than girls. The
mothers receive around 150 euros ($200).
The impoverished country of Niger has the
highest birth rate in the world, an average of 7.6
children per woman.
In 2012, Niger police uncovered a fake
orphanage where babies were sold on, some for
use in black magic rituals.
source: www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/niger-parliament-head-quizzed-trafficking-babies-born-nigeria/