Prostitution and the law as ass

Prostitution and the law as ass

By Clem Oluwole

The law is an ass is a popular phrase originating from 19th century Charles Dickson’s Oliver Twist. The ass represents rigidity and stupidity. In covertures that operated in the medieval England, a (married) woman did not have individual legal responsibility for her deeds and misdeeds. In my understanding of the origin of the axiom, a woman, once married, “becomes one with her man, as she automatically loses her identity to her spouse and is addressed as Mrs. XYZ”. In Oliver Twist, that was a very stupid arrangement – hence the coinage of the phrase which has stood the test of time.

The stupidity of the law came to the fore early sometime ago in a court of law when a commercial sex worker, plying her illegal trade, dragged a client to the Lugbe Police Station in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for non-payment of the service rendered. The matter was taken to the Senior Magistrate’s Court in the town where the police prosecutor, Paul Anigbo, told the magistrate that the client named Henry Godwin of Piwoye Village, had sauntered into the Sunshine Hotel in the town at about 10 o’clock on the fateful night and chatted up the whore called Vivian Okon for a quickie. Both parties agreed on a fee (N1, 500).

According to prosecutor Paul, Godwin bluntly refused to pay up after the tune-up. Rather, he pounced on Vivian like a cat on a rat and pummeled her black and blue. Into the bargain, he buried his teeth in his prey’s earlobe and had a big bite. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, Godwin was said to have destroyed a standing fan belonging to the hotel. Vivian also lost her Blackberry phone valued at N60, 000 to Godwin’s brother who mysteriously emerged at the scene of scuffle. Godwin is now facing a four-count charge of breach of trust, assault, theft and mischief. He is currently on bail.

Also recently in Ado Ekiti, a prostitute and an NYSC guy serving with the Ekiti State University had a spat over an agreed sum for an all-night tune-up. According to a media report the duo had settled for N3, 000 for the night. But on getting home, the corper changed his mind and offered N2, 000. The tuner did not find the slash funny at all. So, she rushed out in anger to the headquarters of the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) to lodge a complaint bordering on sexual harassment. Apparently well-connected in the SARS circle, a horde of operatives was detailed to follow her back to the corper’s abode where they descended brutally on the occupants in the compound without as much as identifying their target. Four other corpers who knew nothing about the failed deal were caught in the SARS attack. In the course of the raid, a gun butt located the right eye of one of the victims and crushed it. The foursome were clamped into detention and later charged to a magistrate’s court in the town on a two-count charge of “gang” rape and felony. In the end, they were discharged and acquitted for want of evidence to try them for the alleged offences. But whether the one-eyed corper would get compensation from the police authorities is a matter of wait-and-see.

Where do the two episodes lead us? To the ass, of course. Or how else do you explain the Lugbe episode where someone was molested while carrying out an illegal business and the law is not charging her too for the offence?

In Nigeria, prostitution is an illegal trade even though some folks have argued that it is a necessary evil because it helps to minimize rape occurrences. However, nowhere is whoredom more detested than in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Prostitution is considered to be a societal filth. And to demonstrate its aversion for muck, the territory has authorized the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), a body with the mandate to rid the beautiful city of filth, to smoke out or hunt down commercial sex workers, who have refused to embrace its rehabilitation scheme but choose to litter the streets at night, pistoning their boobs, and rolling their bumbums sideways as a ploy to wet the appetite of patrons on the prowl.

Lately, Abuja babes have been having it rough with the AEPB whore hunters. It is no longer safe for even decent girls and women to venture out on legitimate business after sunset unaccompanied by male partners. Any solitary walk on the streets of Abuja at nightfall, closing from or going to work despite identity proof, is branded with prostitution, followed by an arrest by the ubiquitous whore catchers.

For instance, a radio personality on Love FM and Nollywood actress, Dorothy Njemanze, who is also a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), was captured at Wuse II by the whore hunters and beaten to a pulp not too long ago. According to Dorothy’s account posted on her website, she was on her way to attend the Miss Ambassador pageant when she ran into the ambush at about 9 o’clock. She alleged that the whore hunters, accompanied by stern looking, gun-trotting policemen, ordered her brother and other onlookers who came to her rescue to back off in their own interest. They obeyed.

Dorothy, a rights activist, also claimed that a married woman, who strolled out of her home to buy suya in the neighbourhood was seized by the hunters. She, however, did not go further to reveal the kind of treatment the woman got in the hands of her captors.

As I observed earlier, if the FCT is that serious about eradicating prostitution in the territory, the courts under its jurisdiction should not shield any commercial sex workers from prosecution when they fall prey to the likes of Henry of Piwoye. As for the SARS in Ado Ekiti, the inspector-general of police, Mohammed Abubakar, should investigate the show of aggression and how a common whore could seduce a horde of anti-robbery operatives into meting out jungle justice to the innocent folks.

All told, the AEPB operatives should be discrete in their modus operandi. In other words, they should have a way of separating the grains from the chaff. However, the truth is that prostitution, like poverty, is an incurable plague…impossible to eliminate. It can only be managed. In some developed climes, the trade is even known to law.