EXCLUSIVE: Nigerian Mother Laments Four-Year Search For Daughter Trafficked To Libya, Extortion By Fake Agents
The family also alleged that they were deceived and financially exploited by individuals who claimed to have information about Halimat’s whereabouts, but later recanted their claims.
A Nigerian family has raised an alarm over the mysterious disappearance of their daughter, Halimat Oluwadamilola Boluwatife Lawal, who is suspected to have fallen victim to human trafficking in January 2022.
The family also alleged that they were deceived and financially exploited by individuals who claimed to have information about Halimat’s whereabouts, but later recanted their claims.
Speaking to SaharaReporters, Halimat’s distraught mother recounted how her daughter disappeared after informing her of plans to travel, despite her objections.
“I don’t know any of her friends and I don’t know any guy with her,” she said.
“The day she told me she wanted to go, she said she was going to Libya and I told her not to go because I don’t know what they are doing over there.
“Later, she told me she wanted to go to my house at Ifo and I was expecting her to be back but I didn’t see her.
“She called me after three days that she was in Kano and I asked, ‘Kano? How? After I warned you not to go?’ Then she hung up. Since then, I have been spending money searching for her.
“I have spent nothing less than N150,000 going from one place to another in search of my daughter but haven’t found her.”
“Then someone advised me to post her on social media, maybe we will find her. Please help me to find my daughter; I don’t have anybody,” the distraught woman said.
Halimat’s sister also narrated a chilling sequence of events that followed the young woman’s disappearance in January 2022, suggesting possible trafficking routes through Kano State in northern Nigeria into Libya.
“She left home in January 2022. She didn’t tell anyone before she left, not until she got to Kano and called our mum that they might not hear from her again because they (people taking her to Libya) told her there was no network where they were going,” Halimat’s sister told SaharaReporters.
“My mum was shouting at her, asking her where she went, and immediately she hung up the call.
“Later, someone used her phone to call back and told our mum that the vehicle her child boarded had an accident and all of them died, including her child.
“At another time, someone called again and said they had collected the phone from my sister, and that nothing happened to her. The person said my sister and others had been taken to somewhere.”
“Since four years ago, we have been praying and spending money, looking for her but we couldn’t find or hear anything from her,” she added.
The family said a breakthrough seemed possible in March 2026 after they circulated Halimat’s photos online, attracting the attention of a man.
“Last month (March), we decided to post her pictures online and asked people to reshare and repost them,” she said.
“After doing that, one man from a WhatsApp group one of my sisters belongs to, reached out to us and sent the number of an agent to us. The agent’s name is Mr. Damola.
“We don’t know the man or the agent at all. Afterwards, we started talking with the agent and the agent told us that they had one of their workers in Libya who could help us to find my sister. He said that my sister was in Tripoli and not in a good condition.
“The agent told us that one of their workers in Libya who is a woman said she went to where my sister was and took food and clothes to her because she was not in a good condition.”
However, what followed, according to the family, was a series of financial exploitation.
“The agent started asking us for money,” Halimat’s sister told SaharaReporters. “First, he told us that he would write a letter to the Libyan government and that if the Libyan government approved the letter, they could go to Tripoli. He said they could not just go to Tripoli to bring out my sister without the government’s approval.
“He first asked us to pay him N60,000. Then asked for a transport fare of N10,000, making a total of N70,000. We sent him the money and he sent me one letter.”
She said, “Inside the letter, he said they (the government) said we should pay N50,000. He added that the NGO he was working with would pay N25,000.
“He said that after paying the money, they would go to Tripoli and bring out my sister. We agreed to pay the money.
“I sent him the money. Later, he said that we should get letters from a lawyer, a Level 11 civil servant and a pastor.”
The sister lamented how they struggled to meet the agent’s additional demands, even resorting to paying for documents through a third party.
“We didn’t know who would help us with the letters because we didn’t have a lawyer. So, I called the person who introduced the agent to us,” she said.
“Later, the person said he had gotten people who could write the letters, and we would pay N20,000, out of which, the lawyer he found would take N10,000 while the other two persons would take N5,000 each.
“I was able to send him N15,000 and he sent letters to me and said that the lawyer refused to collect N5,000. He said I should pay the remaining N5,000.”
The alleged scheme reportedly unraveled after the intervention of Mr Damilola Adeola from a civil society organisation, Hopes Haven Foundation.
“In that process, Mr Damilola asked us for the phone number of the agent,” she said, adding, “After Mr Damilola contacted the agent, he (the agent) turned around and said he did not know anything about my sister, that he was just collecting money from us.
“He started begging, that he would return the money to us. He said he would be paying us N20,000 per week.”
When contacted, the agent, Mr Damola, denied his name, denied knowledge of the matter and the alleged financial exploitation from the family.
He responded to SaharaReporters’ message, saying, “First of all, my name is not Damola,” without identifying himself further.
“Secondly, I know nothing about the whole matter,” he added, denying knowledge of the matter and the family entirely.
However, Halimat’s sister insisted that the agent, Mr Damola, was lying by denying his name and knowledge of the matter.
“He is lying. That is his phone number which I have been using to chat with him. This is the same number Mr Damilola collected from us and chatted with him. He is lying.
“He still chatted with me on March 27 and told me he was going to pay me the money he had the following day,” Halimat’s sister told SaharaReporters.
However, she said the agent has not refunded the money, rather, “he keeps promising to send the money to me but he has not sent it.”
The family is now calling on the Nigerian authorities and the public for urgent help, fearing that Halimat may still be alive but trapped in dire conditions in Libya, a country long associated with human trafficking routes affecting vulnerable Nigerians seeking migration opportunities.
