A 38-year-old farmer found guilty of attempting to trade his son has been handed a 10-year jail sentence by the Takoradi Circuit Court B.

Kwabena Ebo pleaded guilty to a charge of trading of a person contrary to sections 2(1) & (2) of the Human Trafficking Act 694 of 2001.

The presiding judge, Her Lordship Abigail Anima Asare, noted that the accused deserved such stiff punishment due to the offence he committed.

According to the prosecutor, Robert Inspector Yawson, Kwabena Ebo, a resident of Ayisakro, a community near Axim in the Nzema East Municipality of the Western Region, on March 3, 2022, offered his 16-year-old son to a popular fetish priest at a price of GH¢500,000.

The fetish priest, Francis Odasani, also known as Nana Tano Kwaw, was initially approached by the accused person offering his son to be used as a ritual sacrifice for him to get money.

His request was declined but the accused returned to the fetish priest the same day around 1:00 pm persisting that the priest buys his son for GH¢500,000.

Nana Tano Kwaw, realizing the determination of the accused, faked interest in the request by the accused, promising to get him a buyer and asking that he goes and bring his son.

The fetish priest informed the Axim Police Command, who arranged for a plain-clothed police officer to strike a bargain with the accused person.

Kwabena Ebo was arrested after being handed an amount supposedly meant for the payment at the residence of Nana Tano, where they had all met for the transaction.

According to reports, the 16-year-old son of the accused is the eldest of three children he had with his late former wife.

Together with his other siblings, the boy has been living with their grandmother at Akyerɛso, a village near Akim Oda in the Eastern Region, since their mother’s passing.

The 16-year-old boy had become a school dropout due to financial challenges, for which the accused took advantage and sought permission from the grandmother to have his son come and live with him at Ayesakro.

The boy, however, has been sent back to his grandmother in the Eastern Region.

Meanwhile, the fetish priest, Nana Tano Kwaw, has expressed satisfaction with the sentence pronounced by the court on the accused.

“I think it is a good punishment. I saw how remorseful the accused was in the courtroom, but nothing could have saved him at that particular moment. He will learn his lessons next time,” he told Nhyiraba Paa Kwesi Simpson, the host of the Omanbapa morning show on Connect FM.