These people mean business.
For weeks, members of the special task force
have been observing the house of a suspected
trafficker.
Today they’re going to pounce.
The atmosphere is tense – but Solomon Okoduwa
reassures me.
For him and the team this is now routine.
In the last few months they’ve arrested
30 human traffickers.
"Are you prepared for all eventualities so
that nothing will go wrong?"
"Our officers know what they have to do.
They are fully prepared for the operation
today."
The state governor has set up the task force
– and made Solomon special advisor.
He has firsthand experience of what it’s
like to spend years in Libya trying to survive.
He came back six years ago, determined to
take up the fight against human trafficking
"It’s because of the experience I had in
Libya.
The inhuman treatment suffered by our Nigerian
girls and boys must stop – that’s my motivation."
We close in on the suspect’s house.
The operation begins.
"They’ve obviously identified the trafficker.
The next minutes will be crucial for the operation."
Bad luck – the suspect’s not at home.
Maybe he got a tipoff.
Still, the task force did arrest a woman who
probably belongs to the network.
But she seems to be at the bottom of the hierarchy.
A so-called 'recruiter' who gets paid for
luring in young girls
"Most of the time we go for the bigger guys.
But if we don’t have enough information
about the bigger guys we’ll go for the lesser
guys to help us get to the big ones."
For years, Benin City, in southern Nigeria,
has had a reputation as a center for human
trafficking.
It used to be mainly young women who were
smuggled into Europe to work as prostitutes.
More recently the human traffickers have expanded
their network, also in Libya.
Many migrants are held captive there and have
to work as slaves or pay a ransom.
North African and Nigerian bands work hand
in hand.
Solomon had hoped that the arrest of the recruiter
would help the task force get the names of
the big fish – but the woman stubbornly
remained silent.
The best tips, the team told us, usually come
from former victims.
For some time now, Nigeria has been expanding
its program for returning migrants.
Most of them first stay in this former hotel
in Benin City.
Solomon questions a group who were flown out
of Libya just a few days ago.
He often has to be an investigator and psychologist
at the same time.
One of the women still has the dry bread she
was given in the traffickers’ hideout.
"They will ask you 
to pay dollars to an Egyptian called xxxxx
through Western Union or Moneygram.
They will beat you.
If you refuse to pay the money, they will
kill you.
Men, women, children.
They do die.
So we are begging for those people to be rescued
who are still in Libya.
Bring them back home.
Please!"
For Solomon and his team, a tiring day comes
to an end.
They’re proud of their work but they know
the most difficult part still lies ahead.
It’s unclear whether the thousands of disillusioned
and traumatized returnees will find new hope
back home or if they’ll just leave again.
But Solomon is determined to carry on until
the last human trafficker in Benin City is
caught.
