In Africa, politicians, judges, diplomats, and religious leaders have used their positions to hide from justice. But the rule of law has no boundaries, as justice quickly catches up with them outside their national borders.
Recently, a growing number of influential Africans have been arrested and jailed abroad for serious crimes like human trafficking and modern slavery. A typical example occurred on March 13, when a British jury convicted Lydia Mugambe, a Ugandan High Court and United Nations judge, of modern slavery and human trafficking. She had brought a young Ugandan woman to the UK under a pretence of opportunity and forced her into unpaid domestic labour.
Despite Mugambe’s plea for diplomatic immunity, the court convicted and sentenced her to six years and four months in prison for conspiring to breach UK immigration laws, arranging travel for exploitation, enforcing forced labour, and conspiring to intimidate a witness who sought justice.
Although African governments have repeatedly pledged to end the scourge of human exploitation, evidence suggests otherwise, according to a Mozambican journalist. A recent report by the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking also revealed that over 50 million people worldwide remain trapped in modern slavery, with 100 million forcibly displaced and 10 million more people forced into labour or marriage since 2016.
Meanwhile, research shows a pattern across Africa: high-profile individuals from the continent are increasingly falling into the nets of foreign law enforcers for crimes they could easily evade at home.
Ex-Nigerian Senator Ekweremadu, Wife, Doctor Jailed For Organ Trafficking
In 2023, a UK court convicted Ike Ekweremadu, a former Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate, for orchestrating an illegal organ trafficking plot. Ekweremadu, along with his wife and a doctor, trafficked a street trader from Lagos to Britain to harvest his kidney for their ailing daughter.
To protect the victims of the likes of Ekweremadu, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development partnered with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) last year and launched an awareness campaign across 50 schools aimed at turning awareness into prevention. During the project partnership, Binta Bello, Director General of NAPTIP, emphasised that the campaign is an institutional obligation and a communal safeguard.
“The fight against human trafficking is not the sole responsibility of the federal, state, and local governments; it is a collective effort because all our communities are vulnerable,” said Bello.
In April, NAPTIP revealed that over 7,000 victims of human trafficking were rescued between 2022 and 2024, highlighting the agency’s intensified operations across the country. According to the Director-General, the agency also secured 205 convictions during the same period. It established more than 208 Anti-TIP and VAPP vanguards in schools nationwide, strengthening preventive efforts through education and community engagement.
In Ghana, while no high-ranking official has faced prosecution like Mugambe, public trust continues to erode as trafficking networks quietly thrive. In 2024, the U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report placed Ghana on its Tier 2 Watch List, citing the country’s failure to meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, “despite notable efforts”. The report noted a rise in victim identification and investigations but also flagged the lack of sufficient funding, poor victim support systems, and a troubling slowdown in convictions.
In Sudan and Libya, the trend is the normalisation of human trafficking under humanitarian or economic pretences. In these places where civil unrest has destabilised governance, armed factions reportedly engage in human trafficking as a form of revenue generation. Refugees and migrants fleeing to Europe often pass through these territories, only to be captured, sold, or enslaved.
How Influence Shields Traffickers Across Africa
Influence—political, religious, or diplomatic—shields traffickers and offenders across Africa. This allows them to operate with impunity while cloaked in power and prestige. Even countries praised for stability are not immune.
For example, a former Kenyan diplomat, Ms. Stella Orina, faced allegations in the US over accusations of mistreating a domestic worker.
In Kenya, Gilbert Deya, a Kenyan-born preacher, was arrested in the U.K. before being extradited to his home country in 2017 to face child trafficking charges tied to his “miracle babies” scandal. Deya would convince desperate women that they had miraculously conceived and given birth, while the newborns were reported stolen from hospitals and poor mothers. Though a Kenyan magistrate later acquitted Deya, his wife, Mary, was twice convicted and sentenced for child theft in 2007 and 2011.
Gilbert Deya, the Kenyan-born preacher, was charged with human trafficking
But the phenomenon is not confined within borders. Trafficking is increasingly transnational, and some of its most notorious faces have become symbols of global impunity. One is Tewelde Goitom, known as “Walid”, an Eritrean trafficker who stretched an empire of exploitation from North Africa to Europe. Convicted in Ethiopia for smuggling many migrants across the desert, later extradited to the Netherlands to face further charges, including organised trafficking and murder.
In South Africa, the trial of Nigerian televangelist Tim Omotoso exposed human trafficking from the angle of spiritual manipulation. Accused of grooming and sexually exploiting young female congregants, Omotoso faced over 90 charges, including rape, human trafficking, and racketeering. The South African court later acquitted him for what the judge called “insufficient admissible evidence.”
In a UK courtroom far from the scenes of her crimes, British-Nigerian nurse Josephine Iyamu stood accused and was later found guilty of forced prostitution in 2018 after she trafficked young Nigerian women to Germany. Her method was particularly “insidious”; she subjected her victims to traditional voodoo rituals, threatening them with supernatural consequences if they ever fled or testified against her. After conviction, the court sentenced her to 18 years in prison.
British-Nigerian nurse Josephine Iyamu sentenced for trafficking young Nigerian women to Germany
“There is a need for a collective effort by the government and other stakeholders to actively come out with a solution to tackle this new scourge, which is highly underestimated by governments, before it gets out of control,” said Ambassador Ibukun Olatidoye, a seasoned diplomat with 35 years of experience in the Nigerian Foreign Service.
