Saturday, 13 October 2012

Inside Lagos strip clubs •Stripper makes N75,000 per week



A strip or nude club is an adult entertainment venue or a  night club  where stripteases or other erotic or exotic dances are regularly performed.  A strip club  is  run like  a night club or bar, but  it can  also adopt a theatre or cabaret  form.
This club, no doubt is gradually making its way into many  towns and cities in Nigeria  and with increasing patronage by different sets of people.
Efforts by various governments, especially the Lagos State government  to rid   towns and cities of these strip clubs  have  met a brick wall as the operators of such businesses  are back with little or no moderation to the usual practice.
The government, while attempting to bring a little sanity to the city’s night life once raided the strip clubs in  the  Ikeja axis of Lagos  State and  arrested the strippers. But  the operators reacted  by charging the government to court.
This  incident  generated a lot of issues and divided the public  who held different opinions on the  business.
Investigations carried out recently revealed that the operators of  strip clubs  are back in  business  and  are  carrying out  activities there   in a manner which obviously  gives  them an edge over ordinary night clubs  in  terms of  patronage.
Scattered all  over Lagos mainland are   strip/nude  clubs like  Cazz bar, Club Unique, Wall Street bar, Cave Exclusive and Ocean Blue.
A visit to the Cazz bar on Opebi road, Ikeja on a Friday night was an experience  always fresh in the  mind of these  reporters.
After paying an entrance fee of N3,000.00  one is entitled to  enjoy the ambience where most of the strippers are beautiful white girls ‘imported’ into the country to entertain and  meet  the audience’s  different needs.
The girls who have their  bodies  scantily covered  with   g-string pants  and bras took a   pole-dancing position and when  charged, they discarded of the scanty clothings on them and danced naked  performing also the   lap-dance for any patron who was willing to give them a tip.
Further investigations revealed that there is a VIP section where you pay an entrance fee of N10,000.00  which  entitles  you  to  have anything  on demand free.
The Cazz bar  regulation  states that a patron who is willing to go home with  one of its strippers will wait till 5:000 a.m (which is the closing time) and pay the management while leaving his phone number and address for security reasons.
At the Cazz Bar it is stated that each of the strippers collects N75,000.00 per week excluding  accommodation and feeding.
The practice at the Cave Exclusive in GRA, Ikeja is a little different compared to that of  Cazz Bar.
At the Cave Exclusive, the entrance fee is N5,000.00. What makes  the operations of  Cave Exclusive  different  from others  is that not only that the strippers are  scantily  clad, the bar attendants who are mostly  ladies  move around and attend to patrons  in  their underwears.
The environment  speaks  sex and you won’t fail to catch  a glimpse of  couples engaged in    one  sexual act or the other  and with no damn  given   to  prying  eyes.
One of the attendants who spoke to the reporters  claimed she wasn’t initially aware that the rule is that  attendants  also will  work in their underwears. she said she discovered this on her first day at work and that she was planning to quit  anytime from now  as she wasn’t comfortable with the practice.
On further questioning, she claimed her take-home pay  in a month is N25,000.00 and she  feels  she shouldn’t be subjected to such a treatment  for that amount as customers are free to touch and make passes at  her,  while the management expects  her  to smile back at them.
The Cave Exclusive which has been running for over three years records a huge patronage on Fridays as fun-seekers throng the hangout to enjoy what they offer.
The operation in other strip bars is not different and it attracts patrons who are willing to part with any amount of money as long as they are satisfied.
Strip and nude bar operation  is said to have started in Lagos in the 90’s. Then,  some hangouts in Apapa used to bring in  ladies who were used  in  meeting  the  sexual needs  of  European  sailors who often visited the hangout while on trips  to Lagos.
The operation gradually gained  ground and has now become fully rooted with  quite a  large number of nightclubs in existence.
A trip round the city of Lagos revealed that   virtually  every  nook and cranny of this city  has   this    strip and nude club  due to the commercial gains derived from them.
Teenagers and young ladies see the club as an avenue to make money not considering the consequences of their action.
It was  also gathered that top businessmen and politicians catch fun, but they choose to do that in hangouts that operate strictly by membership.
A strip bar owner in Lagos is said to  rake in between N5m and N10m every month  depending on  the location  and patronage.
A usual strip club is open everyday for business, but has Wednesdays and Fridays as its special days.
Many had thought that the Lagos state government would win the battle to  curb, if not stop this business,  while  some  opine that  it’s a  business that has come to stay whether the government likes it or not

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