God Might Have Said It’s Atiku’s Turn To Become President In 2023 –Wife, Titi

Mrs Titi Atiku-Abubakar, wife of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, speaks to HINDI LIVINUS about the genesis of her campaign against human trafficking and the success made so far, among other issues

You are a champion for anti-trafficking campaign; tell us about your advocacy work in this area?

You know even if you take care of one child, there’s a blessing for that parent in heaven. I am Mother WOTCLEF (Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation). I have been involved with this NGO, for over the past 22 years, taking care of children, that I don’t even know, who are not my biological children. I am doing it and I am very happy. I don’t know how I have been able to cope managing these children all these past years. Most of these children are very vulnerable.

I have a rehab center where I take care of these children. I think this year alone, four of them have passed out of secondary school. I have counselled and given skills to over 12,000 boys and girls. And I am still doing it and it will still continue. The very first private bill, passed by the National Assembly, which gave birth to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, was sponsored by me.

Where did you get the inspiration for the work?

I was a lecturer in Kaduna Polytechnic and a lot of times if these girls come to class you would see them looking so unkempt, and if you ask questions, they would tell you they went to Jerusalem to perform the pilgrimage. And what you have taught, they would make you teach it over again. But I didn’t mind; as a mother, I was doing it for them. And it happened that around the mid-80s, 1986 and 90s, I was in Rome, and I saw so many girls on the street of Rome in skimpy clothes. So, I was wondering and asking what they were all doing in skimpy clothes and I was told that they call them ‘madame’. That these girls were actually teenage children, brought from Nigeria; they facilitate their visas and all their travel documents. I got to know, in fact, that most of them were deceived, back home, and made to go through ritual rites on the promise that they would be taken to Italy, to teach in a school, because they don’t speak English in Rome. You know they deceived these children just to make them go through some rites, and they instill some fear in them to take them away. When they get to their destination they seize their documents and they give them the skimpy dress to go out there on the street. I asked, “Is this what they are doing, prostitution.” They said, “Yes.” So I became so bitter. After my course, I said to my God that if He should hear my prayers, if I am in a position of authority one day, I would help these children. So, that was what actually what happened. And when my husband became the Vice President, then I remembered that I had a covenant with God. So, I took up the mantle and I opened a place. When the people in Rome heard that there was a Nigerian who had set up an organisation that handles issues of human trafficking, they started repatriating these girls back to Nigeria. Because of the covenant I had with God, I don’t want these children to suffer, so I received them, and many of them had HIV/AIDS. I told them I was ready to take good care of them, and since I was in the Villa, I was taking good care of them. I was sheltering them, providing them food. I didn’t steal government money, but I was using government’s food, to feed these children. Somebody gave me a place that I used for the rehabilitation centre for them. That was how I started.

Since 1992, your husband former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has been running unsuccessfully to be the President. Will you encourage him to try one more time?

When my husband was in school, he was into politics. And once you are a politician, you will continue to be a politician. Yes, he has been in politics, since the time of MKO Abiola, but it is destiny. If God said the time is not ripe, there’s nothing one can do. You continue trying. God says we should pray without ceasing, and we shall continue to pray. If it is your heart desire, you continue to pray to God and worry Him, until He gives you that thing you want. So, I cannot tell my husband not to play politics. Maybe, God has said this is the right time for him.

Source:Punch

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com