The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has become the Nigerian “Italy” as some highly-connected ladies now lure beautifully-endowed but poverty-stricken innocent girls from remote villages and towns for prostitution in the name of job availability in the capital city.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and other related agencies are aware of this development and have been making efforts to sensitise the public on this dangerous trend.
The NAPTIP has always discouraged girls against traveling out with people of questionable character who promise them job opportunities and better life abroad.
Although the Federal Government has consistently assured Nigerians of good economic outlook, the level of poverty is still very high to the extent that most families can barely feed twice a day.
Perhaps as a result of the economic hardship some parents easily submit to the claims of job opportunities in the big cities and send their daughters out to make money for them at all costs. Investigations by Daily Sun reveal that most girls who travel to Abuja on the claim of going to meet a friend for a job end up in apartments rented for them by their mistresses.
They roam at night for “romantic hunt” so as to make returns to their mistresses. From the proceeds of their daily outings they pay rents to their boss ladies. Anybody who is not ready to meet up with that is thrown out of the house.
There are also disturbing cases of some women who go to villages in search of house helps. They give out those girls to restaurant owners in town and get paid monthly.
Back to the “mart girls” as they call themselves they are easily picked out in their neighborhood and any social gathering.
They are either, hugging their cigarettes, puffing out thick smokes or bickering among themselves. They are frequently accused by their neighbours of stealing clothes in the compounds where they are housed.
Some of their neighbours who claim that they are struggling to contend their seeming anti-social behaviours confessed that living in the same neighborhood with these “mart girls” is real hell.
Mrs. Sandra Olayinka lives in the same compound with some of the girls in the Jabi. Her story: “These girls have lost every sense of womanhood. At times, I wonder if it was really a woman that gave birth to them.
“There is no kind of evil that they do not involve in. They smoke and steal at any smallest opportunity. There was a day we nearly ran away because of the number of heavily armed security operatives we saw on the street.
“It was later we were made to understand that one of the girls said she came back that morning with the money she made and kept it with her gold jewelry in her bag, only for her to come out of the restroom and found her bag emptied. The lady that was sleeping when she dropped it and discovered it was nowhere to be found.
“She invited members of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to help her collect her stolen property. But till date nobody has seen the ‘sleeping lady’ because immediately she stole those things, she relocated to another place to continue with her business.
“Our husbands can easily be seduced. As from 4pm you start seeing them with all manner of skimpy and braless tops, walking around the environment hunting for the night’s catch. It is no longer easy living with this kind of people around you. I pray God to protect my husband from these daughters of destruction.”
Another neighbour, Abdulrasheed Adamu, from Maitama confessed: “It is not funny having these girls around the neighbourhood.
You cannot differentiate between night and day because they are always going and coming till dawn. Even when you want to rest in the day, you hear them quarrelling on top of their voice. At times they fight violently.
“The most annoying one is what they wear around. I find it difficult to come out of my room. They wear very skimpy, see-through clothes and sit carelessly in the compound to attract any available man. To void temptations, I stay in my room until when I am going out.”
A security man in Wuse Zone 3, Mr. Lawal Shuibu, claimed that the ladies are making his life unbearable as he can no longer sleep at night: «l am always attending to someone at the gate till dawn.”
He added that the rate at which they fight and quarrel is alarming: “There is no day that passes without them fighting over missing things around them.”
The Rapid Response Squad Force headquarters Abuja Assistant commissioner of police in charge Mr Mohammed Guri sent a strong warning to criminals to relocate from FCT Abuja or else it will wage a war on them.
