The owner of Collabor Hotel, an inn on Ige Street in the Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos, has been arrested for reportedly hosting underage sex workers in the facility.
John Okon, the owner of the hotel, and the hotel manager, Emmanuel Thomas were arrested. Their accomplice, Monica Ita, however, is still at large.
PUNCH Metro sources reveal that on Saturday, March 10, 2018, operatives of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, acting on intelligence, raided the hotel and found a 15-year-old primary school student allegedly engaging in prostitution.
The girl was brought to Lagos from her village in the eastern part of the country by Ita a few weeks ago told that she would get a good job.
A Destiny Bassey, 19, and 18-year-old Bright Effiong, who had been at the inn for three years, were also picked up by the operatives.
The hotel operators admitted to providing service for the sex workers, during a parade on Tuesday at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters in Ikeja. However not for 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 revealed that Ita persuaded her to come to Lagos when she saw her playing in her village.
“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.
“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.”
Bassey, who gave her age as 25, confidently told police that she slept with five men a day and made N10,000 in a day altogether.
She said that joblessness pushed her to the act.
“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.
Edgal Imohimi the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, said that agents were deployed following a tip-off that a syndicate was running a prostitution ring.
“A team of SARS 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.