‘Kidnapped Taadi girls still in Ghana’ – Gender Minister confident

Gender and Social Protection Minister, Cynthia Morrison, says there are strong indications that the three Takoradi young ladies reported kidnapped since last year are still in Ghana.

The Minister said although human trafficking has not been ruled out in the disappearance of the girls, there is a strong likelihood that the Nigerian kidnap syndicate believed to be keeping them has not taken them out of the country.

“We don’t think that the girls have been sent out of the country. They are still here in Ghana but the Nigerian High Commission is also talking to his colleagues out there,” Cynthia Morrison said Monday evening on PM Express, a current affairs programme on MultiTV.

The Gender and Social Protection Minister a meeting on Monday with the Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana in a bid to discuss ways to find the three young ladies also provided important leads.

According to the Minister, the key suspect in the kidnapping saga, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, a Nigerian being held by police, had a fruitful chat with the High Commissioner.

She said she could not share to the public details of the meeting between the High Commissioner and the suspect, but they will help with efforts to find the girls.

Mounting pressure

The girls – from separate families – were taken from various locations in Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis of the Western Region since last year and nothing has been heard about their whereabouts.

Priscilla Blessing Bentum, 21, was the first to be taken in August 2018. The student left home for choir practice but never returned. Her worried father reported her disappearance to the police 24 hours later. It is now known that she was abducted at Kansaworodo, a suburb of Takoradi, an oil-rich town.

Priscilla Mantebea  Koranchie, 15, was last seen on December 21, 2018. She told her younger siblings she was taking a walk to a nearby town, Nkroful and since then no one has heard from her.

While residents say seven teenage girls have been kidnapped, police refute this claim and say only three girls have been reported kidnapped.

‘Abandon’ the girls

Speaking on PM Express on Monday evening, Madam Morrison said it is likely that the progress being made by security agencies could force the kidnap syndicate to abandon the girls to prevent being caught.

“What I am thinking is that they can abandon the girls and run. That is what I am thinking…because it will be unwise to harm them…I don’t think they will harm them.

“I am praying that they abandon them where the girls can locate an access road or something. It shouldn’t be somewhere that maybe the girls cannot escape…I pray that God will touch their hearts and they wouldn’t do anything silly” she said.

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