The police in Lagos have arrested the owner of Collabor
Hotel, an inn on Ige Street in the Iyana Ipaja area of the state, for allegedly
hosting underage sex workers in the facility.
The owner of the hotel, John Okon, was apprehended along
with the hotel manager, Emmanuel Thomas. Their alleged accomplice, Monica Ita,
was said to be at large.
PUNCH Metro learnt that operatives of the Federal Special
Anti-Robbery Squad, acting on intelligence, busted the hotel on Saturday, March
10, 2018, and caught a 15-year-old primary school leaver allegedly engaging in
prostitution.
The girl was said to have been brought from her village in
the eastern part of the country by Ita a few weeks ago on the pretext that she
(Ita) would get her a good job.
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Our correspondent gathered that one Destiny Bassey, 19, and
18-year-old Bright Effiong, who was said to have been at the inn for three
years, were also picked up by the operatives.
During a parade on Tuesday at the Lagos State Police Command
headquarters in Ikeja, the hotel operators admitted to providing service for
the sex workers, except the 15-year-old girl.
The hotel manager, Thomas, said, “It is true that we provide
rooms for sex workers where men visit them. We collect N5,000 from them (the
sex workers) every week. We don’t give them out to men; they bring their
customers themselves.”
The 15-year-old told PUNCH Metro that Ita persuaded her to
come to Lagos when she (Ita) saw her playing around the village.
She said, “I finished from primary school two years ago, but
I could not continue my study because my parents died. Aunty Monica (Ita) came
to the village and asked me to follow her to Abuja. She said she would get me a
good job.
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“Some days after I got to Lagos, she took me to the hotel to
do prostitution. I had yet to get a room when the police came to pick us.”
Bold and unabashed, Bassey, who gave her age as 25, said she
slept with five men per day and collected N2,000 from each of her customers.
The Imo State indigene added that joblessness pushed her to
the act.
She said, “Nobody forced me into prostitution. I have been
hustling at the hotel for some years now. I send part of the money I make to my
relatives in the village for the upkeep of my child. I don’t have parents and
my husband is dead.
“I sleep with five men every day, so I make as much as
N10,000. I pay the hotel N5,000 every week. I wanted to save enough money for
my education.”
Effiong, an indigene of Calabar, Cross River State, also
said she went to bed with five men daily, adding that some of her customers
paid N1,000.
“I came to the hotel last year and paid N3,000 per week for
a room. I did only one round with each customer,” she added.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi, said
the command swung into action following a tip-off that a syndicate was running
a prostitution ring.
“A team of FSARS operatives stormed Collabor Hotel and
arrested a 15-year-old girl. She confessed that she was brought to the hotel
some weeks ago by one Monica Ita. The coordinators of the prostitution ring,
Emmanuel Thomas and John Okon, were also arrested. The case will be charged to
court at the completion of investigation,” the CP added.
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