“See, they always will threaten us and when Oga pay money to security people, business go return.”
While the raid carried out by the Department of State Security, DSS, on two hotels in Calabar, Peace Garden Hotel and Papsi’s Place, may have yielded more than 40 prostitutes, investigations carried out by www.calitown.com has revealed that the arrest will in no way take the two red light hotels out of business.
Our reporter who went undercover in the course of this story was informed by one of the workers at Peace Garden Hotel that, “…“See, they always will threaten us and when Oga pay money to security people, business go return.”. We dey pay money to these people in the millions and anybody wey think say we don end go soon discover say we dey business to cater to adults and pay the security agents money.”
Pressed further for information, the worker insisted that, “this raid no be the first time, e be like the money dem collect before don finish.”
We discovered too that while the raid targeted the girls, the facilitators of this prostitution ring are still roaming free. This is the angle that is angering James Ibor, a Calabar based lawyer and activist.
Speaking early this morning with www.calitown.com, Ibor said, “these girls are arrested by law enforcement agents who are happy to take part in raids like this because they will also exploit these girls already exploited by our society. They arrest these girls, rape them, extort money from them but do not prosecute them. How many of these girls have been brought to court? See, in most of our cultures here, nudity is permitted and it is painful to see anybody arrested on the grounds of nudity. Again, how often are men arrested during these raids? We must tell ourselves the truth and stop this show of shame.”
Unknown too to several persons, the owners of Peace Garden Hotel also own the popular red light facility located in Obutong, opposite the Flour Mills on the Murtala Muhammed Highway. This place has been serially raided by security agencies, even culminating in the pulling down of the structure in 2015 by the Cross River State Government. It has since been rebuilt and ‘business’ has accordingly resumed.
“Until those behind this trade and financially benefitting from it are arrested and prosecuted, nothing will change”, one source emphatically told us.
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