MUST READ: When Female Students In Tertiary Institutions Sell Their Bodies

This is a throw back but an important piece written by Olushola Ricketts for Guardian, i decided to share with you for some reasons. Please read and share your thoughts. Thanks!

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The rate at which female students in tertiary insitutions offer their bodies for money is now worrisome. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike has recently intensified it, as most of them have nothing to do in school. For a trip, a girl could   take home N10, 000 to N100, 000 depending on the pocket of the fun seeker, how well she can negotiate and her beauty.

THEY are good daughters at home, students in the classrooms, but prostitutes or as they call themselves, “big girls” at night. The business of spreading joy and happiness has become more financially rewarding for them, especially the ones who are not contented with what their parents give to them. 

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  The Guardian’s reporter visited some clubs in Lagos recently and was astonished with what he saw there. One particular experience was at a bar on Finbarrs Road Akoka, Lagos which has a nightclub. It was besieged by girls, mostly students from different institutions of higher learning. They were scantily dressed.
   As the reporter was getting bored, a particular girl walked in. Just some minutes after she settled down, a man engaged her. They chatted almost all the night. It looked as if she only came to unwind but there was something usual about her. She was not dancing, only busy taking pictures, staring at others and pressing her BB touch phone. And again, she was laughing and talking with a bar lady in a way that showed that it was not her first time at the club.
  The reporter met with the bar lady and asked about her. It was a straight reply: “Do you want her for the night?”
   The reporter decided to play along so as to get to the bottom of the story. He agreed with the bar lady to part with N5, 000 although the initial amount agreed was N10, 000. She said it was too small but the reporter insisted that was all he got. She asked for a minute, moved aside and returned with the good news.
     She was finally here. The girl explained that she came because of the owner of the hotel but after her friend (the bar lady) mounted pressure on her, she was willing to do a short time. The reporter resolved to pay her N3, 000 for the short time.
   After booking a room for N4, 000, the therefore reporter asked why the other guy did not take her home. She replied: “Don’t mind him; he was just telling me how he would snatch me from my boyfriend. E no get money. I am only doing this for the money.”
   The reporter asked again: “Don’t you think your boyfriend would find out?” She replied: “I am selective and very careful. And besides, I don’t go to clubs anyhow.”
   It was later gathered that she is a Management student of a polytechnic in Lagos.
   A conversation with a 20-year-old student of a university in Lagos who perceived the reporter to be a CEO of an oil company in Lekki, Lagos was also interesting.  The reporter said: “I saw your pictures on a friend’s phone and I wish to have you around for the weekend.”
   She replied: “How did you get my number?” He told her he got it from the same friend. Then, she dropped the bomb: “Okay, it depends on your pocket. How much do you have?”
   “Money is not the problem. If you make me happy, I will do you well,” the reporter responded. In other words, she agreed to come and demanded to know the time and day. She kept calling the number until she got fed up.
   Recounting his experience, a fresh graduate, Tunji Alaba (not real names), said he met a 200 level student at a friend’s party in the club. He admitted it never occurred to him she was a “runz girl” until after some months.
    His words: “She talked responsibly and I told her how much I liked her. I had no reason to see her as a wayward girl and we have been chatting on BBM for some time.”
   But one day after they agreed to meet, she said she was broke and had no money for transportation. Alaba narrated: “It is just N200 from where she is to where I am. She said she would borrow money and I would refund it. I said no problem. Suddenly, she changed the tune and demanded to know how much I would give her. I reminded her that she did not need so much to come around. She said she was broke, that her cream has finished and she needed to make her hair and buy some stuffs for herself too.”
   Alaba then told her that they could talk about it when they meet. But she said: “At least you should give me money for my hair. I cannot just come empty-handed and go empty-handed.”
  “We later did not see that day because I refused to tell her what I was going to give her,” Alaba said.
  After some time, she called again that she wanted to come around and she would be spending the night. Alaba said he had no problem with that. She came, they had fun and he gave her N1, 000 for her transport. Alaba noticed she became cold suddenly. She did not say a word, though.
  “It was after I got to the office she sent a message that she was disappointed with the amount I gave her. She said she thought I would give her money as she was preparing to go to school. That was the last time I heard from her,” Alaba revealed.
  According to a university student in Lagos  who has some friends plying the trade, some of the girls do it for pleasure and some for the money. After pleading for anonymity, she added that sheer youthful exuberance and peer influence are reasons responsible too.
   “Talking about pleasure, there are nymphomaniacs out there who do not care what you have to offer them. It doesn’t matter how little inasmuch as they are satisfied. Some are from humble backgrounds and their parents have little or nothing to give them.  Also, some are not contented with what their parents give them.
   “It’s not surprising that daughters from affluent homes are also engaged in the act. I think all this happen when contentment is lost,” she informed.
  She stressed that some ladies had engaged in one too many bad escapade. Citing example, she narrated: “Imagine a lady I know who goes on boat cruising with a married male friend she has been seeing for a short while. Along with her friends and the married man’s friends, they went. They all later headed to his apartment in Lagos Island but unknowingly for the ladies, the drinks were drugged and they completely lost consciousness. These men slept with them and even took photographs of the goings-on. Although none of them died, I’m sure it was a bitter experience for them.”
   Interestingly, she said they are different kinds of prostitution. “Most of them do not even see themselves as prostitutes because they feel prostitutes are cheap roadside hawkers.”
    The Guardian learnt from a reliable source at a university in Ogun State how girls are besieging the offices of top government’s officials. There is always rush when such offers come. The source said most of the officials do not even sleep with them. “They only ask them to do all sort of things to satisfy them,” he said.
   It was also gathered that some ladies leave their schools, come to Lagos to hook up with Indians and Lebanese etc.
  According to a lecturer with the Lagos State College of Medicine, Mrs. Ini-ibehe Okoko, the trend is not limited to ladies alone. She stressed that young men also see dating or sleeping with older women as lucrative.
  “Most of them (ladies and guys) want to be like their colleagues, use I-Phones, latest Black Berry phones, etc. These are luxuries their parents cannot afford and even if their parents can afford them, those are unnecessary things for students in the higher institutions,” she noted.
  In addition, she said ladies who sell their bodies lack focus. She admitted that poor parental upbringing is also a factor. Talking from experience, she said some parents pay little attention to the formative years of their wards. “But this is very crucial because once a child passes the age of nine, it becomes hard to change him or her.”
  She advised parents to inculcate morals in their children in a way that whenever they grow up, the morals grow with them.
 “We should try and put that godly character of contentment in them. All these students do not even understand that if they study hard, the sky is their starting point and there is nothing they cannot achieve or get.”
     Head of Exams and Academic Records, Chrisland Educational Organisation, Oludotun Shotunde, says the act is shameful and quite unfortunate. He added that it shows the state of decadence in the academic environment.
  Corroborating Okoko’s views, Shotunde disclosed that if a child is well trained, she would be able to differentiate between the good and the bad.
  “What we do for our students at Chrisland is to introduce many programmes that would help them to develop and discover themselves and be useful individuals afterwards,” he explained.
    He however described the issue as a universal one that calls for urgent attention.
  “We should engage our principals, parents, lecturers, teachers and other school administrators on the need to battle with the menace because the future of Nigeria starts from now.”

-Olushola Ricketts/Guardian

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