Smack in the center of Jos Metropolis at the popular Old Airport Junction is a nondescript one-storey building called Nana House. The building houses some shops and stores downstairs while the top floor hosts offices including a law firm.
Nana House could be described as an unimposing building with the tenants engaged in legitimate businesses. However, behind the plaza is an open space, about one plot where other business ventures take place including food canteens and beer parlours where one can get quick meals and bottles of alcoholic drinks to wash down.
But all these seemingly legitimate businesses wind up with the close of day and as night falls, Nana House takes another life of its own as another form of business takes over. The front of the plaza becomes home for dealers of roasted fish, chicken, dog, and pork meat sellers. Added to the brisk business ventures are a group of young men popularly called “Michika Boys” who sell cigarettes, hot drinks, and illicit drugs under the cover of darkness.
Those activities would pass as ordinary businesses where the sellers eke out a living. But behind Nana House is another world where another form of life takes over. As early as 8pm, the open space becomes a den of the age-long skin trade where teenage prostitutes hold sway trading their bodies for money.
The prostitution ring that unfolds at Nana House especially with the young girls involved, with some as young as 14-years-old is a troubling reality, one that many would prefer to ignore, but which can no longer be swept under the carpet.
The prostitution ring starts as early as 8 and 9pm and runs till the early hours of the next day and the troubling aspect is that parents and guardians do not care where their young female children are and one is forced to ask: when did it become normal for parents not to know where their teenage children are at such late hours? How did parenting deteriorate to this extent
To capture the real scope of teenage prostitution and the decadence that goes on at Nana House at night, our correspondent went undercover and spoke to some of the young girls and their responses spoke volumes about the menace that has gradually crept into Jos city.
The encounters captured the great dangers teenage prostitution poses in the psyche of Jos which is steadily rising and slowly gaining momentum in a way that should deeply concern parents, community leaders, religious institutions, and the government alike.
It was also an exposé on the causes of prostitution and they all boiled down to parental neglect, hunger, drug abuse, displacement due to violence, poverty, unemployment, peer pressure, laziness, love of money, and sexual addiction
First to speak was Rachael Timothy, a 16-year-old mother of one who said she was forced to become a prostitute to take care of her child after the man who got her pregnant abandoned her and her parents threw her out of the house.
“I was only 14 when my boyfriend impregnated me and refused to take responsibility. I was in JSS Two and I was naive. I did not know he was a married man until I became pregnant and he refused to accept the pregnancy. I had to drop out of school and to add to the humiliation, my parents chased me out of their house.
“Things became so difficult for me and I had to do anything to survive. It was one aunty in my neighborhood who brought me to Nana House to help her in her fish roasting business. When I first came here, I noticed that she would often disappear with different men during the night and when I asked her where she often went to, she opened up that those men were her boyfriends who would take her to nearby hotels, sleep with her and pay her.
“She told me she had to engage in that to augment what she was making from the fish business. She told me I could make good money from those men and introduced me to some of them. That was how I was initiated into prostitution and though I am not proud of doing it, I have no choice as I have to take care of my child.”
For Linda Siman, a 15-year-old girl, it was a violent attack and displacement of her community by Fulani bandits that forced her to come to Jos to “hustle” to take care of her family.
“I am from Riyom Local Government Area and I was in JSS 3 when Fulani people came to our village and killed many people including my older brother who was taking care of us after our parents died. Everybody in our village was chased out and we had to go and live in a camp (IDP Camp).
“Things were very difficult in the camp as we did not have enough food to eat and some of the camp officials used to force us to have sex with them or they would not give us food. One day, one girl who was my friend said we should run away and we escaped from the camp and first went to Kugiya in Bukuru where we started prostitution but last year, some officers came and arrested many people.
“I managed to escape and that was how I found myself here. I am not happy selling my body at this age but I have no choice because I have to take care of my younger ones.”
For Afiniki Inusa, an 18-year-old mother of two, her journey to becoming a prostitute was influenced by bad friends. She said she was living with her mother after the death of her father and her mother was doing all she could to cater for her and her siblings but due to the influence of bad friends, she dropped out of school and followed them to Abuja where they engaged in prostitution.
In the process, she got pregnant and had to come back home. Though her mother was angry with her, she took her in and cared for her and her baby. When the child was about eight months, Afiniki left her with her mother and went back to Abuja to continue with her wayward life.
Soon after, she became pregnant again and had to come back to Jos. After she put to bed, she once again left the child with her mother, moved in with a group of old friends, and at night, would go to the Nana House to “hustle.”
“Depending on the number of men I can get, I make between N5,000 and N10,000 per night but on a bad day, one can hang here till very late and would not make up to N2,000. On such days, you can accept N500 or even N200 for a round of sex so you can have something to eat the next day. I won’t lie to you, prostitution is not good and I regret it every day but there is nothing I can do,” Afiniki said.