The Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Monitoring Unit which raided the four strip clubs on the Opebi-Allen axis of Ikeja also arrested 33 naked dancers and two of the clubs’ managers.
The four nude clubs are Club Unique, Wallstreet, Cazzbah and Magic City formerly known as Ocean Blue.
Club Unique is on Ogundana Street off Allen Avenue while Wallstreet is located at 70B Allen Avenue. Magic City, formerly called Ocean Blue, is located adjacent to Sweet Sensation Bus Stop and Cazzbah is adjacent to Opebi Bus Stop.
It was gathered that before the raids on the clubs were carried out, some task force officials had visited the clubs disguised as patrons. They monitored the clubs’ activities for a night before raiding them in the wee hours of the following day.
Indeed, it was supposed to be a night like any other, a night to service the dark appetite and or damaging habits of wild fun seekers, who paid N2, 000 to gain entry. The business of the day had begun on schedule. Guests were slipping in to “relax” and unwind with some of sexiest go-go dancers in town, as one of the club’s handbills proclaimed, when the task force men came calling. Unlike the past visits when the law enforcement officers came to “see” the managers of the nude clubs or to catch some fun themselves, their mission was different that night.
It was gathered that some of the girls were actually caught pants down. Having drunk a cocktail of booze, cannabis or cocaine, as usual, some of the girls were on stage serenading the men as they did the erotic dances, pulling off their scanty clothing in bits. Some, naked as Eve, were engaged in lap dance with patrons, who stole quick caresses. Yet, other girls waited for their turns to perform behind the stage.
In fact, the spectacle of the strippers arrested by the task force men was stomach-churning. The scene was despicable, even sickening. A hoard of ladies n various stages of nudity.
Chairman, Lagos State Environmental Taskforce, Mr. Bayo Sulaiman, told us that the state government shut the clubs as a result of public outcry over their existence.
Sulaiman added that most of the clubs had become hideouts for criminals and undesirable elements.
He stressed that the strip clubs were not registered and were not regulated.
Immediately the report over the activities of the nude clubs was published, the Archbishop of Lagos State, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, lamented that evil has completely taken over Lagos and called on Governor Babatunde Fashola to act immediately to arrest the trend by shutting them down.
“Evil has taken over in Lagos State. The way things are going, when girls of between the ages of 15 and 25 dance nude and throw caution to the wind with boys and men watching them, then they are sending a wrong signal to the society. It portends danger. We are sitting on a loaded gun,” said Okogie, in a statement signed by the Director of Social Communications, Lagos State, Reverend Gabriel Osu.
Okogie called on Fashola to act now because the strip clubs are on the increase, while those shut earlier had re-opened with impunity and with a change of name.
“I hope this is not making mockery of Lagos as mega-city, Centre of Excellence and City of Aquatic Splendour,” he said.
While some Lagosians called on the state government not to shut the strips clubs but simply regulate them as adult fun exists in all mega cities, most people kicked against their existence and simply called on Governor Fashola to close them down.
We learnt that the arrest of strip dancers was dramatic as they did not expect the taskforce visit them in the night.
A 24-year Ghanaian lady,Traore Anida, who was among the strippers arrested during the busting of the club, said she started the job a month ago because she was desperately in need of fund to go back to her country.
She said that she was brought to Nigeria by a woman whom she said is based in the Republic of Benin.
“I need money to go back to my country and there is no other work I can do to get the money fast. That is why I joined the job,” Anida stated.
Emma Ofor, manager of Club Unique who was arrested along with the 33 strippers, said that he joined the club in January this year, adding that poverty made him to accept the offer. Offor said that he could not reject the offer as he was in desperate need of a job.
“That is the circumstance I found myself and it is because of my situation. I was desperately in need of job when the offer came and I just had to accept it.”
Goddy Benjamin, manager of Wall Street Club who was also arrested along with the strippers denied that ladies go naked in the clubs to entertain patrons.
However, we were there several times, when young girls danced stark naked to entertain guests at Wallstreet.
Benjamin stated that the activities at the club are regulated and the club obtained licence from local government for its operation.
“Ladies in my club do not go naked. They do not dance naked. They always cover their body, they are just like other models and nobody harasses them. My ladies do not dance naked,” Benjamin claimed. However, we can confirm that the statement is inaccurate.
The Task Force Chairman has called on the general public to supply the outfit with more information on where strip clubs operate.
“We want more information from members of the public of the location of more of such club houses; the Task Force Chairman implored the public.
WHAT THE NUDE DANCERS HAVE TO SAY
For some strip dancers and the operators of the club where they perform in Lagos, November 3, 2009 was a day of reckoning. It was a day the bubble burst while the sexual display madness for which the joints were notorious was going on.
That fateful Friday night, officials of the Lagos State Environmental Task Force and Special Offences Units raided four seedy joints and arrested 33 nude dancers and two managers. The clubs were also put under lock and key for constituting social nuisance and operating without approval from constituted authorities.
According to Mr. Bayo Suleiman, a superintendent of police attached to the task force, “it is true that we busted four clubs and sealed them off because of public outcry. There is no regulation and permission for their business and it is immoral. The clubs also serve as criminal hideouts.”
The affected clubs are located at the Allen/Opebi axis of Ikeja. They are Mega City (formerly known as Ocean Blue), Club Unique, Cazzbah and Wall Street Club and Pub.
Indeed, it was supposed to be a night like any other, a night to service the dark appetite and or damaging habits of wild fun seekers, who paid N2, 000 to gain entry. The business of the day had begun on schedule. Guests were slipping in to “relax” and unwind with some of sexiest go-go dancers in town, as one of the club’s handbills proclaimed, when the task force men came calling. Unlike the past visits when the law enforcement officers came to “see” the managers of the nude clubs or to catch some fun themselves, their mission was different that night.
It was gathered that some of the girls were actually caught pants down. Having drunk a cocktail of booze, cannabis or cocaine, as usual, some of the girls were on stage serenading the men as they did the erotic dances, pulling off their scanty clothing in bits. Some, naked as Eve, were engaged in lap dance with patrons, who stole quick caresses. Yet, other girls waited for their turns to perform behind the stage.
In fact, the spectacle of the strippers arrested by the task force men was stomach-churning. The scene was despicable, even sickening. A hoard of ladies in various stages of nudity.
Saturday Sun gathered that the arrested strippers were detained for eight days before being granted bail by a Lagos State Mobile Court. According to Mr. Tayo Ashagba, Public Relations Officer of the Task Force, “their managers will produce them whenever they are wanted in court.”
However, the officials of the task force, who were sent to rescue the not only exceeded their mandate but also added their personal programme.
They allegedly sexually abused the strippers and made away with their personal belongings, including cash, handsets, and jewellery. Some of the girls claimed that they were raped.
Narrating their ordeal in the hands of the law enforcement agents, some of the strippers said the rampaging officials took them in turns to satisfy their sexual appetite.
One of the nude dancers, who claimed to be a student, said: “They said that what we were doing was bad but what they did to us was worse. When the task force people came to arrest us, some of them behaved like animals and they treated us as if we are not human beings. They were squeezing our buttocks and breasts and fingering us (inserting their fingers into their private parts). Then they raped some of us.”
Asked if she was eventually raped, Betty, as she introduced herself, said she was not. She, however, added that her handset and money were stolen.
Hear her: “They took my Samsung E4900 handset and N1, 800 inside my hand bag. They squeezed my buttocks and breasts, but I was not raped. I was just lucky. Some other girls were not.”
Another victim, who gave her name as Detra, said she was raped at the Courtyard of Wall Street, the nude club she operates.
Detra said: “One of the men pulled me into a corner and raped me. He first told me that she would set me free if I agreed. Later he said that if I did not agree he would still have his way and arrest me. He pulled me to a corner and told me to bend down, while he did the doggie style with me. After he had his way, he reneged in his promise to set me free.”
Recalling the events of the night, another stripper, Evelyn, said: “When they came that night, I did not know that they would take us away. We thought that they came to be settled, as usual. You know, some officers normally come, from time to time, to see the manager. Usually, after seeing the manager, the manager will divert some of us to meet the officers.
At such times, we sleep with them. But that night, there was commotion because of the way they entered; they were shouting and rough handling us. They stole a powerful phone given to me by my guy, who returned from the United States not long ago.
“In fact, they searched my hand bag and took my wristwatch, necklace and N4, 000. I did not even see my make-up kit. I don’t know what they want to do with that.”
Asked if she was raped, the dark complexioned Warri girl, with full breasts, declared: “I no fit talk again; the one wey I don talk don do. Leave me alone.”
Sources told us that the task force men had a field day sleeping with the girls while they were in detention. Said the source: “After the girls were arrested, the officials took turns to rape them. They promised to assist some of the girls to escape prosecution but they never did. The task force people had a hell of time with the girls.”
Meanwhile, the nude clubs have gone back to business, with the girls doing their strip shows. The girls said that their arrest would not stop them from engaging in the trade that provides their daily bread. Also, many other clubs are springing up, especially in Ikeja and Apapa areas of Lagos.
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