Sex slaves: Police bust Ogun hotel rescue 22 young girls

 

Men of Sango-Ota Area Command, Ogun State, have raided Kolab Hotel along Ayetoro Road, Itele area of the state and rescued 22 ladies including underage girls used for prostitution at the facility.

The manager of the hotel, its supervisor and eight other male workers were also arrested during the operation on Friday evening shortly after our correspondent contacted the spokesperson for the state police command, Abimbola Oyeyemi, for comments on the undercover investigation carried out at the facility.

Oyeyemi had promised to verify Saturday PUNCH’s findings and acted accordingly.

Acting on a lead that minors were being forced into prostitution at the hotel, our correspondent had posed as a client to gain access to the room of one of the girls, 16-year-old Abigail (not real name), on Tuesday.

Abigail, who claimed to have dropped out at Senior Secondary School 1 due to financial constraint, had narrated how one Aunty Bright brought her from Calabar, Cross River State, sometime in November 2020 to work with one Madam Nelly as a salesgirl so she could raise money to return to school.

To her dismay, Nelly changed her real name to Abigail and turned her into a sex slave, collecting proceeds of prostitution – N500 per client for short time (brief sex) and N1,000 for all-night romp – from her on a daily basis.

The minor’s appeal that she was tired and wanted to return to her hometown in Calabar fell on deaf ears, adding that Nelly didn’t allow her access to a mobile phone.

Relying on Saturday PUNCH’s investigation, a police team led by Area Commander Sango-Ota, ACP Muyideen Obe, stormed the hotel on Friday and rescued 22 persons.

Abimbola, the police spokesperson in the state, in a statement on Saturday, also said 11 male suspects were apprehended at the facility.

He said, “The police team, upon credible intelligence received that minors were being recruited from other states and used as commercial sex workers at Kolab Hotel in Itele-Ota, stormed the said hotel around 8pm on Friday. Twenty-two teenagers were rescued.

“On interrogation, the girls narrated how they were lured from their respective villages in Akwa Ibom State to come to Ogun State, with the promise to employ them as salesgirls in restaurants and supermarkets, only for them to get to Lagos and be transferred to a brothel in Ogun State as commercial sex workers.

“They narrated further that they were deprived of using phones or any communication devices, therefore, making it impossible for them to reach out to their parents or relations. The Commissioner of Police, Edward Ajogun, has ordered that the family support unit of the Area Command take over the investigation of the case, identify the recruiting cartel and bring them to justice as soon as possible.”

However, our correspondent, who visited the Area Command on Saturday, noticed that Abigail was not among the rescued victims.

During another visit to the hotel around 3pm alongside a police team, a wrapper Abigail donned on Tuesday when our correspondent spoke to her was hung on her apartment door which had been locked up. Her belongings were recovered from the room after the padlock was broken.

The manager, 33-year-old Isaac Ogbaji, stated that the management always informed ‘new comers’ of the nature of the job at the hotel.

“We know some of them are minors, so we always ask for their age,” he said, adding that some of them would lie over it. “Even when we wanted to reject them, they would beg us. They pay N2,500 every week. I last saw Abigail on Thursday.”