You Patronize Us Too – Sex Workers Tell Police

MICHAEL AKINOLA

Angry sex workers, who were arrested and charged before the Ebute Meta Magistrates Court in Lagos, have accused the Nigeria Police operatives of maltreating them despite the fact that they also patronized their trade.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that the sex workers were arrested at various locations in Oyinbo area of Lagos, where they stood looking for clients before the Police raided and arrested them.

They were later brought before the Chief Magistrate, C. A. Adedayo, sitting at the Botanical Gardens Magistrate Court, Ebute-Meta, Lagos, and were sentenced to communal service of cleaning the Court premises for four hours.

The prosecutor, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Barrister Yetunde Cardoso, the officer-in-charge, Legal, Lagos State Police Command, alleged that the 21 defendants sometime in 2020 at Oyingbo, conducted themselves “in a manner dangerous to the public by unlawfully displaying themselves in public as prostitutes.

The defendants are Aisha Musa, 27; Experience Abraham, 24; Blessing Augustine, 30; Jennifer Peter, 25; Angela Peter, 27; Josephine Daudu, 21; Mariam Asukwu, 22; Ayomide Afolahanmi, 26; Sandra Uzoma, 24; Dosu Charles, 31; and Patience Iboro, 20.
Others are Joy Kingsley, 27; Sophia Uchechukwu, 22; Treasure Joseph, 23; Chisom Ena, 27; Ifeoma Stephen, 27; Angela Abonka, 24; Olamide William, 22; Aisha Aruna, 28; Inamdi Success, 22; and Gift Kelechi, 24.

The defendants had pleaded not guilty and were subsequently sent to the Kirikiri Correctional Centre as there was no one to take them on bail.
They were brought to Court again yesterday in their second appearance and Magistrate Adedayo sentenced them to the four hours of community service.

While they were cleaning the Court premises, they lamented over the hypocrisy of some Police officers, who will sleep with them and still come to arrest them. Some of them claimed they even offer them free sex and sometimes money yet they will not allow them to do their work.