Trade Swells Due To Hard Times
Jude Ossai and Lawrence Amaku


Transformed by wigs and skimpy dresses,
it is time for the ladies to go for businessIT was 10.30pm around Ojuelegba in Lagos. Young ladies, of all sizes and shapes, began to line up the streets; some in groups and some doing solo soliciting. Soon after, a woman, obviously, older and a little bit plumpier than most of the girls, also came and took her position on the street. She had squeezed herself into a pair of jeans trousers and a top that showed all the folds of her upper region.

Some of the girls began to hiss, complaining of some old school prostitutes who have refused to leave the oldest trade so that the younger generation could thrive; or better still, some old housewives who have left their husbands and children at home to hustle with them thereby saturating the lucrative market.

The hissing and grumbling refused to move the woman. She pretended not to hear them until a customer came and picked her thereby eliciting some jeers from the other girls. It is the sign of the times!

Somewhere around Ring Road in Ibadan sometimes ago, a woman stood at the roadside late in the night. She was, recently, divorced from her husband in Ondo and had fought to keep her children. To make ends meet, she decided to do some 'runs' in the night to augment her income as an orange seller.

An Indian picked her up and, after some haggling, took her home. At home, the Indian's eyes began to 'open'. What he could see was quite different from the sweet sixteen figure he thought he initially saw. But right there before him was a woman in her early fifties with flabby arms and fat stomach squeezed in some tight-fitting skirt and blouse. He was no longer interested and asked the woman to leave. Where would she go at this time of the night? How about the expectant children she left behind at home? The woman must have thought within herself. She refused to budge but, rather, demanded full payment for her services which she was yet to render. The disappointed Indian was furious and decided to beat her up. She ended up in a hospital. Another sign of the time traceable to global meltdown?

[b]Few months back, a national daily carried the news that Lagos state has 2,576 registered prostitutes. This information, then, raised a lot of reactions among residents but nothing has come of the issue since.

The Executive Secretary of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP), Barrister Carol Ndaguba, recently, stated that Akwa Ibom State has the highest number of prostitutes, and these prostitutes all operate within Lagos state. She said statistics from Uyo zonal office of NAPTIP alone showed that, out of 104 victims rescued in the last quarter of the year, 53 were from Akwa Ibom state. “It is sad that most of the Akwa Ibom girls rescued were used for prostitution in Lagos , and that most of the brothels in Lagos are inhabited by young girls from Akwa Ibom State ,” Ndaguba said. The unwritten legality of prostitution, as a profession in Lagos, has given rise to an increase in the number of areas where sex hawkers can be found. These areas, popularly called hot spots or red zones, increase in number daily and the efforts of police officers in picking them off the roads, at regular intervals, have not had any impact.

The fact of the matter is that the biting economic situation has continued to make survival a top issue and those from the hinterland see a city like Lagos as the El dorado.

Recently, residents of Obalende raised alarm on how landlords, in the area, are encouraging prostitution by leasing their buildings to prostitutes who flocked into the area after being displaced from Kuramo beach and other areas within Lagos.

Saturday Tribune learnt that most landlords have capitalized on the influx of sex traders into the area to turn their houses into brothels. They are also said to charge between N500 and N1, 000 for short services by the prostitutes. There are many buildings in Obalende which have been turned into emergency brothels.

Red spots in the area include: Allen Road , Opebi, which is described as the most expensive, Egbeda-Idimu Road Car wash, Ikeja along, Isaac John Street in Ikeja GRA, the various beaches and many others.

Move away from these areas, campuses of various tertiary institutions, across the state, have turned to super red zones. In these campuses, prostitution wears a garb of dignity and is called so many names like ‘runs’, ‘hustling’, ‘parole’ and other such nomenclatures. People who have the urge for refined sex hawkers merely need to visit any of the campuses in Lagos, and the deed is done.

The services of these student sex hawkers do not differ from that of their counterparts outside except for the calibre of people they attend to. Most of these students only cater for the rich and old men; not young blood like themselves except the affluent ones.

Also, the manner of ‘advertisement’ in tertiary institutions is also different from that of those outside. They use middlemen and pimps who liaise with the clients and take a cut of the fee but outside, sex hawkers relate to their clients one-on-one without any go-between.

Prostitution, which has been described as the world’s oldest profession, has continued to thrive in Lagos state in spite of the various steps taken by government and its various agencies to stem the trend.Residents have also attributed to the increase in crime rates in the state to the unabated menace of prostitution. Young girls in neighbourhoods where these red spots are located get introduced to sex and are, continuously, defiled by neighbours who lure them with stipends.

Many factors have been attributed to the increase in prostitution in the state. Reasons adduced range from, mostly, the poor economic situation of the country. Benjamin Oruh, a lawyer said the major issue has to do with poverty. “What you see is a result of the failure of the state. When a young girl has to feed her parents and siblings without having a tangible job or when a family of ten sleeps in a room and a young girl watches her parents having sex, what exactly should one expect?

I am not ruling out the greed and laziness factor but the truth is that the poverty level in this country is so high and that of Lagos is even higher with the density of the population and the terrible living conditions of many. Emeka Onyewu, a trader has a different opinion. He told Saturday Tribune that, “If government continues to break our shops and render us jobless, what do they expect us to do? It’s only prostitution and armed robbery that many would turn to. In fact, I am sure many homes will soon become brothels.”

In Abuja, there had been an influx of people from within and outside the country, in recent times, and among these migrant ladies are those who have come to ‘hustle’.

Some of these ladies, whose ages range from 16-35 years, operate from highbrow hotels in the city. Those are the high class prostitutes. Others in the middle range operate in brothels and street-waiting girls. Some of them, in this category, move from the satellite towns in Abuja into the city at nights to hang around major streets waiting for their patrons. A bevy of these ladies are found mostly in Wuse Zone 4, NICON Junction, Rita Rolly, in Area 11, Garki and a host of others[/b].

These ladies, who are skimpily dressed, displaying their nudity to attract their clients, are no less nocturnal animals; they come out as from 10.pm and lay siege on the streets waiting for their gullible would-be clients: the night crawlers.

Only last week, a court in Abuja sentenced 20 of these women of easy virtues to 2-weeks imprisonment for indecency and public assault. They were arrested by the Police in the streets of Abuja at night as it is their custom to appear half-naked in order to attract their clients.

Some of the other category that operates on the highbrow hotels, Saturday Tribune investigations learnt, are from South Africa. These ladies pose as staffers of Multinational Corporations who are in Abuja on official business. One of the ladies, who simply gave her name as Rita told ST when prodded, “We have rooms in Transcorp Hilton, Rockview and other hotels. I am from South Africa and I work for MTN.”

When the reporter asked if she had any Identity Card to back up her claims, she showed her ID card bearing her insignia as an MTN Staff and disclosed that she was in Nigeria for a three-week course.

However, unconfirmed sources told ST that there is a cartel, with some diplomats at the Nigerian High Commission in South Africa, that send these ladies to Nigeria . According to these sources, the cartel and their partners, at the High Commission, procure visas and other travel documents for these ladies. They also provide contacts for them in Nigeria .

A prominent Nigerian who spoke to Saturday Tribune at the lobby of Transcorp Hilton said, “I can confirm to you that there are many South African prostitutes operating in Abuja . They prey on politicians and high profile individuals. I have encountered them.

Also opposite Sheraton Hotel, ST spoke with a lady in her teens; she wore a low cut, black top and a tight denim standing as though, she was waiting for an available taxi. Of course, as a new timer in town, you would be marveled at what such teen of God would be doing at such late night hour,

But an 18-year-old lady who hails from Anambra and a student of University of Abuja, revealed that she had been in the business for good two years since she gained admission into the school. While narrating her ordeal, she told the reporter that she lost her father to a fatal motor accident shortly after she got the admission to the school and has been the one fending for herself at school.

ST investigation revealed that there are about 17, 000 of these prostitutes in Abuja . Though no concrete statistics was obtained but a highly placed source told ST that the number may even be higher. He said the problem is that there was a serious problem of unemployment in the country. “Life in the rural areas is unbearable and what happens, these women come to the city to look for how they can take care of themselves and that of their families”.

The source added, “It is estimated that about two per cent of Nigeria 's female population is poverty-stricken. Women are attracted to the money in the cities, but have to have sex to earn it -- this is probably a large reason why the HIV infection rate is so high in the country today”.

http://www.tribune.com.ng/11042009/spi_feat1.html

Thats what happens when impoverished illiterate folks flock to the big cities. There's no jobs and therefore massive underground economies are created. No modern city can survive growth of 3.5m people in 1 year, no matter how rich!

No city can create the jobs needed to accommodate this many people.

And they can't just move into the city and create endless number of slums and markets, create waste, hazards, crime, and destroying whatever was left of the ecosystem.

I'm sorry but its the truth, no sad faces here, just painful truths. These people need to stay in their area, there is no jobs in the cities for them, and if they turn to armed robbery they shall be treated like armed robbers.

The emphasis on akwaibom makes me sad.these are probably the most honest and humble people in nigeria.there major offence being fighting to the last of the biafran war.these people are marginalised in both nigeria and south-south politics.for those who may not know,akwaibom is 2nd only to rivers in oil production.as long as this neglect and marginalisation continues we'll still be seeing house girls,maids and prostitutes from this rich state.akwaibom and crossriver deserve a fair share of their contribution to nigerian income.dualized roads must be constructed to link various communities with aba,calabar and uyo.good schools must be provided,there should be high federal gov. presence in uyo and calabar.