National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
Inside FCT
Friday, June 13, 2014
she gushed at Sege, grabbing his glass of Vodka and taking a sip. After small talk with her, the reporter was introduced as a friend just back from the United States. “Ahhhh, Uncle, welcome o’” she said as the waiter brought her a glass of her own and then she really dug into the vodka, pouring a full glass. Sege explained to Joyce that, being a stranger to the Abuja social scene, his friend was finding it difficult to get a suitable girl for the night. “Ahaa, dat one na small thing naah bros, no problem, which type u want”? Joyce brought out her phones – an expensive Blackberry Q1O and an iPhone – and navigated to the picture gallery on the former. “Oga, choose your specs for dia; I go call am come now now’”. The reporter was stunned as a digital photo album full of pretty young ladies of varying sizes – all in different degrees of nudity – was thrust in his face. He skimmed through until he spotted a darkskinned girl and showed to her. Joyce glanced at the picture “Oh, Amarachi; what a pity, she no dey o, she went to Port Harcourt. She go hustle.” In the Abuja call girl lingo, to hustle is to go out of town in search of a client. The girls make as much as N50,000 to N80,000 on such trips. “How do you go about the business?” the reporter asked innocently. The question elicited a ripple of laughter from Sege and Joyce. “Network dey naa, she go don get connection before she even leave”, Sege volunteered. He was hinting at an innovative solution that the girls had devised for marketing their services through social media and new technology which has enabled them to reach out to a national and, sometimes, international clientele. Social media influences Social media networks including Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger and, more recently, Badoo and Tagged, have revolutionized our world and the way we establish and maintain contacts with other people regardless of the distance. It has effectively neutralized the distance barrier. Commercial sex workers in Abuja, like their counterparts in Lagos and Port Harcourt and other big cities, have harnessed this technology to optimize business. This
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Women of easy virtues
reporter learnt from Joyce that prostitutes often conduct commercial sex trade via social media. For Joyce, her preferred social media platforms for commercial sex business are Badoo and Blackberry Messenger, BBM. She showed her own near nude pictures on her iPhone where she had her phone numbers and a ‘Call Me’ sign printed at the top corner of the pictures. These, she said, she often broadcast on her Badoo page and to her clients on BBM. This means that a vibrant marketing via social media would help the girls give up the street hustle. They could now remain in their homes until a client calls their phone for services. The incident led the reporter to the Badoo website where he found a teeming nest of call girls grouped by city location. Debby O., Sunita A., Franca A., Jacqueline N., Josephine A. and many others are profiles of young Abuja-based ladies who work the social media circuit as commercial sex workers. Their nude pictures act are cached in private albums for pay-per view. How does the customer pay? The answer was intriguing and says a lot about the ingenuity of the young, business – minded ladies. The potential viewer is required to buy GSM recharge cards and send via sms to a given number. Subsequently, he is given access to the private albums which is another step in the direction of soliciting sex for cash from the profile owners. A comb-through the Twitter also revealed that the same ladies are active there, soliciting clients with messages like “Who wants a freaky girl for the weekend in Gwarinmpa?”, ‘I want an Abuja big boy for dinner”, “You will leave your girlfriend/wife if you taste me for the night; call 080XXXXXXXX”, etc. The potential for marketing that this girls wield with the power of social media is astounding. It is indeed unimaginable the extent to which a call girl with Skype and Badoo can
A prostitute wooing a client
Prostitution in this city is
booming.
The
availability of big money from the political elite,
top civil servants and government contractors guarantees the ladies of the night a handsome income take her business. Gloria, a twenty-three year old prostitute, recounted how she landed a “big fish” and got an all-expense paid trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to service a rich client all through the power of social media. According to her, she was introduced to the new trend by a Simisola, who goes by the handle @Simisola_xxx on Twitter. A visit to Sumisola’s Twitter account reveals that she is based in Lagos from where she runs a busy trade, providing tips on how to run a profitable commercial sex business with the power of social media, handling a network of new entrants into the business who she diligently mentored and also maintaining a particularly vibrant en-
gagement with numerous fans and client online. Following tips from Gloria, the reporter established contact with another call girl whose Twitter handle is @Iyabooloyannla who offered sexual services for a fee. Her terms included payment of a two thousand naira introductory fee into her bank account as a down payment to indicate a prospective client’s seriousness. Big Pimping In spite of all the allure and benefits of social media, many call girls still ply their trade the old fashioned traditional way – by waiting on the streets or living in brothels where prospective clients come to patronise them. Sege led the reporter to a retro-styled brothel somewhere in the heart of Wuse. Half-clad ladies blatantly solicited patronage by grabbing at male visitors. The brothel is next to a guesthouse kept by one of the para military forces and, according to Lucy, one of the ladies of easy virtue, many of their clients are off – duty officers of the service. Interestingly, in other brothels visited in Lugbe, Jabbi, Mararaba, Nyanya and Kubwa, it was discovered that the biggest clients of the prostitutes are uniformed men, who often times became regulars, providing both cash and protection from arrests. The biggest irony about the booming business of prostitution in Abuja is that is appears to grow in the proportion of the funds devoted to fighting it by both the FCT administration and non-governmental organisations, NGOs.
Raining season: Kubwa residents lament deplorable roads Adeola Tukuru
A
s the rainy season sets in, residents of Kubwa in Shinning star,2/2, a suburb situated on the Suleja Express way in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have raised alarm over the deplorable state of some roads in the area. Some of the residents who spoke to ‘Inside FCT’, decried that the situation would make movement difficult for the residents even as the rainy season sets in. While some complained of lack of maintenance of the roads, others decried the slow pace of work in on-going road projects, thereby leading to loss of time and other human resources on the roads. Our reporter observed that worse still, is its damaging impact on businesses and other working environment, because of obvious distortions on the routine flow of activities in the area, as residents now get ‘swallowed up’ in the ensuing confusion
Lugbe area
and chaotic hard reality . One Mr. James Okon, stated that the roads to the area are not accessible. “If you drive round our area, you will observe that most of the roads are very bad and we don’t know what plans the government has for the roads in 2014. According to him, the road leading to Kubwa village market is also in shambles as there is no parking space for motorists.
He expressed concern that the Bwari Area Council appears not to be very functional and it is expected that the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to intervene. Another resident, Hillary Udoka, also complained that aside from the Shining star area, the inner streets in Kubwa, such as NEPA Road, Bhyazhm Road, Kukwuaba Road, Pipeline Road, Jahji Streets were not
maintained. “Most of the roads in Kubwa have been tarred but the inner streets are not tarred. This makes them impassable, particularly during rainy seasons” Madam Tina Oche, a trader stated that most of the inner roads in Kubwa are in a bad state. She pleaded with the FCT Minister and also the Chairman of the Bwari Area Council, to come to their aide and repair them as a matter of priority. Also a student in the area further urged the Federal Government to come to their aide in constructing a road for the residents, stating that due to the bad road, there are constantly motorcycle accidents among residents. Lara Omoniyi, stated: “Twice or thrice in a week, we usually witness accidents by okada riders . The government should help us rehabilitate our road to avoid accident occurrence. We voted them into office so they should help us now that we needed them.”