Four more children have been traced to Lagos and Delta as investigators pursue an alleged child-stealing network stretching beyond Oyo State — but a discrepancy in the police recovery figures now requires clarification.
The investigation into an alleged child-stealing and trafficking network operating across parts of south-western Nigeria has widened again, with the Oyo State Police Command reporting the recovery of four more children and the reunification of all four with their families.
The latest recoveries, announced on Thursday, September 17, bring the figure of children recovered in the investigation to 21, according to the command.
The four children were traced to Lagos and Delta states after parents who recognised their missing children came forward following the police’s earlier announcement that 17 children had been rescued from the suspected network.
The new development has given investigators fresh leads into a case that began with the disappearance of a three-year-old boy at a masquerade festival in Oyo Town in June and has since expanded into an alleged interstate operation involving the movement and sale of children.
From One Missing Child to a Wider Network
The case began with a petition submitted on July 29 by Adejoke Popoola, also known as Orente Alagbo, a resident of the Sogade area of Ariyo, Ibadan.
The petition reportedly raised allegations of conspiracy, cyberbullying, threat to life and defamation. It was assigned to the Anti-Kidnapping Squad on August 3.
While investigators examined that complaint, they were drawn to another case — the disappearance of three-year-old Ifakunle Ifagbenro.
Police said the boy had accompanied his father to an annual masquerade festival at a family compound in Oyo Town on June 29. Popoola, who had reportedly arrived in the area ahead of the festival, allegedly offered to carry the child.
The police said photographs and videos from the event showed Popoola carrying Ifakunle shortly before the child disappeared.
Investigators subsequently traced people identified through the digital evidence and arrested Popoola on August 4.
According to the police account, her statement became the first major breakthrough in the wider investigation. She allegedly told detectives she had been involved in stealing more than 15 children between the ages of two and seven from churches, parties and other public gatherings in and outside Oyo State.
The Commissioner of Police, Abimbola Ayodeji Olugbenga, said the investigation had uncovered a pattern involving the identification, movement, sale and concealment of children.
He described the movement of the victims beyond Oyo as confirmation of the network’s interstate character.
The police later traced Adekanbi Janet, also known as Hosanna, to Mowe in Ogun State. Four children aged between two and four were reportedly recovered from her custody, while two pregnant young women were also found there.
Police said Adekanbi acknowledged knowing Popoola for about 10 years and provided further information on how some children were allegedly held pending sale.
Her information also helped investigators locate Ifakunle, who was rescued around Gbagi in Ibadan on August 20.
The Trail Moves Across State Borders
The investigation then moved further south.
On September 2, detectives travelled to Agbor in Delta State, where police said four children allegedly stolen from Oyo State were recovered from people described as their buyers.
Two suspects, identified by the police as Christopher Joy, 48, and Rosemary Jesse, 53, were arrested.
The development was significant because it showed that children allegedly taken from their families were not necessarily being kept close to the locations where they disappeared.
Instead, investigators said they were being moved across state boundaries, complicating efforts by families to trace them and increasing the importance of information-sharing between police commands.
The latest operation has pushed the trail into Lagos.
Police said investigators travelled to Lagos on September 3 and rescued three-year-old Taiwo Olamilekan in the Akoka area.
Another child, Aleemi Omogoriola Okuleye, was subsequently rescued from Ikorodu on September 8.
The investigation then produced another lead in Delta State, where police said two children from the same family were recovered in Agbor on September 14.
They were identified as nine-year-old Adeyinka Ayomide and two-year-old Adeyinka Gold. Police said the children had allegedly been stolen from their parents in Ogun State before being taken to Delta.
Investigators said they verified the identities of the four children and their biological parents before handing them back to their families.
The family reunifications are among the most important developments in the case because they turn missing-person complaints into identifiable evidence about how children may have moved through the alleged network.
A Recovery Figure That Needs Police Clarification
There is, though, an important inconsistency in the publicly reported figures.
When the Oyo command announced the rescue of 17 children on September 7, the police’s own published list already included three-year-old Taiwo Olamilekan among those 17.
That list was reproduced by several news organisations, including Channels Television and Radio Nigeria.
Four days later, the September 17 update identified Taiwo as one of the four newly rescued children from Lagos and Delta.
That creates an apparent overlap.
If the original 17-child list and the latest four-child list are both complete and accurate, Taiwo appears in both, producing 20 unique recoveries rather than 21.
There may be a straightforward explanation. The September 7 list may have been provisional, the earlier record may have been updated, or one of the entries may have been included in error.
But the command should publish a consolidated list of the 21 children it now says have been recovered, with dates and locations of recovery, to remove the uncertainty.
That matters because the case involves children whose identities, family relationships and movements are central to an eventual prosecution.
It also matters for families still searching for missing children. A clear record could help parents determine whether a child has already been recovered under another entry or whether the investigation has uncovered a new lead.
Six Children Reportedly Died in Captivity
The recovery of four more children also sits against an earlier and much darker development.
When police announced the rescue of 17 children, the command said six other children had died while allegedly in the custody of members of the suspected network.
The children were identified by police as Musharaf Lawal Tajudeen, Greatness Adeagbo, Sainat Amoo, Taiwo Usman, Daniel Solomon Olayinka and Miracle Olaniyi.
Police said they were investigating the circumstances of the reported deaths.
The investigation also produced allegations of a possible ritual component.
According to the police account, information from suspects suggested that bodies of children who died in captivity were allegedly sold to ritualists.
That allegation led to the arrest of Muritala Fasasi, described by police as an Alfa, and Yakubu Azeez, described as a herbalist.
Police said both men had confessed to involvement in the alleged use of victims for ritual purposes.
Those remain allegations from an ongoing criminal investigation, not established facts in court.
The circumstances surrounding the six deaths could become one of the most significant parts of the investigation because establishing how the children died, who had custody of them and what happened to their remains could determine the scope and severity of any eventual charges.
The Baby-Factory Question
The investigation also raises a wider question about the alleged market into which stolen children were being moved.
Police have described the case as involving child stealing, human trafficking and a suspected baby-factory operation.
The earlier investigation indicated that children were allegedly being kept until buyers were found, while pregnant young women were reportedly kept in custody until delivery.
The police said the investigation was uncovering the roles of people who allegedly sourced children, held them, moved them across state lines and received them elsewhere.
That suggests investigators are not dealing only with individual kidnappings but are examining whether there was a chain connecting people at different stages of the alleged operation.
That distinction will be crucial.
A prosecution capable of reaching beyond the people who physically removed children from their parents would require investigators to establish who recruited, transported, concealed, received, paid for or otherwise facilitated the movement of the victims.
Nigeria’s anti-trafficking law expressly covers the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for exploitation. The law states that the trafficking of a child for exploitation can constitute trafficking even where some of the other elements normally used to establish trafficking are absent.
Why the Interstate Trail Matters
The geography emerging from the case is striking.
The investigation began in Oyo.
It moved into Ogun.
Detectives later travelled to Delta.
The latest recoveries extend the trail into Lagos, while another set of children allegedly taken from Ogun were found in Delta.
This is precisely the type of movement that can allow trafficking networks to exploit jurisdictional gaps.
A missing-child complaint may be filed in one state while the child is transported through another and eventually placed with a buyer hundreds of kilometres away.
The Oyo investigation has therefore become a test of how effectively state police commands can share intelligence, verify identities, trace suspects and recover children across state borders.
A Wider National Warning
The Oyo case is unfolding as other child-trafficking investigations expose the scale and variety of methods allegedly used by criminal groups.
Earlier in September, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons said it had rescued more than 180 children allegedly trafficked from five states by groups that reportedly posed as civil society organisations.
According to NAPTIP, some of the groups allegedly approached vulnerable families with offers of education and back-to-school support before removing the children.
NAPTIP Director-General Binta Adamu Bello warned that criminal elements were allegedly exploiting the credibility of legitimate civil society organisations to gain access to vulnerable communities.
Separately, an investigation published in August reported that more than 300 children had allegedly been taken from communities in Benue State in 2024 through a programme presented to families as educational assistance.
That case is separate from the Oyo investigation, but it demonstrates how different forms of deception can produce the same outcome: children being removed from their families and moved into systems that parents struggle to trace.
What Police Must Do Next
The latest recoveries have strengthened the case for a wider forensic reconstruction of the alleged network.
Investigators now need to establish how each recovered child disappeared, who received the child, where the child was kept, whether money changed hands and how the suspects communicated.
They also need to reconcile the identities of every recovered child against missing-child reports in Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Delta and other states.
Digital evidence will be important.
So will financial records, phone contacts, transport records, photographs, identity documents, medical records and any adoption or custody documents used to explain the presence of a child in another household.
The police have already said Commissioner Olugbenga directed investigators to pursue every credible lead, identify additional victims and unravel the full structure of the suspected network.
The command has also appealed to parents and guardians whose children remain missing to report to the police and supply information that could help investigators trace them.
That message may prove critical.
The latest breakthrough did not come solely from police intelligence. It also followed parents recognising their missing children after the original 17-child recovery was made public.
For families who have spent months or years searching, a photograph, a name or a police announcement may be the lead that finally reconnects a child to home.
The investigation has therefore moved beyond a single missing-child case.
It is now a test of whether the authorities can follow the trail from the people allegedly taking children to those allegedly buying, receiving, transporting or exploiting them — and whether every missing child connected to the network can be identified.
Most importantly, the police must now turn the growing list of rescues into a complete evidential map of the network.
The four latest reunifications are a major development.
But the unanswered questions around the recovery tally, the six reported deaths and the full chain of those allegedly involved mean the investigation is far from over.
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