[size=14pt]Onitsha sex market[/size]
•Pregnant women, mothers & daughters involved
From ALOYSIUS ATTAH
Sunday, November 20, 2011


It was a Sunday evening, a supposedly holy day for Christians. Traditionally, the major markets are closed in Onitsha, the commercial capital of Anambra State in South East Nigeria, and it is either a visiting day for the city dwellers or time to attend town union meetings. It is also a day to unwind at the various drinking joints.

Time was 6:45pm and this reporter was at the Lagos Park bypass near the Chisco Park to investigate an already conceived script from enquiries about some areas of the city, inhabited by women of easy virtue.
Dusk was gradually kissing the day goodbye and the area was bustling with a flurry of activities. Commercial cyclists (Okada) and motorists honked their horns while music blasted from the loud speakers of a nearby record store. Everyone seemed in a hurry either to get home or to complete other tasks before nightfall.

Travellers were boarding the night buses to Lagos even as motor park touts scouted for more passengers. This reporter sat on a plastic chair at Mama Nkechi’s kiosk where the middle-aged woman sold all kinds of spirits, local concoctions, kola and gin after getting her permission under the pretence that I was waiting for a brother traveling to Lagos that night.



While fiddling with my phone, the reporter’s “third” eye was also fixed on an unfolding scene nearby. Two young ladies clutching leather handbags and another black polythene bag popularly known as ‘walkie-talkie’ suddenly appeared from the opposite direction, near the Chisco Park toilet. They briefly exchanged pleasantries, scanned the environment and walked towards a lock-up stall painted in a popular noodles wrapper’s colour and began fiddling with their phones. Soon after, other ladies joined them.
From the entrance of the bypass to the end connecting the flyover and Port Harcourt Road, commercial sex workers in different sizes, colours and shapes beckon to male passers-by, soliciting patronage. Dressed in the most provocative wears, they chorus: “Fine man, I will do you fine oh”; “Brother, you will like my service”; as well as other seductive and amorous clichés.

“We have our oga (boss) here, who supervises what we do. He is the one who supplies us condoms through one of his friends, who is a medicine dealer at the Onitsha Bridge Head Market. We also pay him a certain stipend at the end of the day. A round of sex here is N300 but sometimes we reduce the amount if the person is stingy.”
Sunday Sun also learnt that the proprietor of the sex business has private rooms within the park that serve those who do not want to share the sex tent with others. A private room for ‘short time’ costs N700.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/newsonthehour/2011/nov/20/newsbreak-20-11-2011-001.html

I didn't know that there are pimps in Nigeria.