Women, selling their bodies for money; some pushed into this nefarious profession out of poverty, some, out of sheer greed and some others, simply for the love of s*x. In this piece, Vanguard explores the lives students in our tertiary institutions, who now appear more remarkable in their runs for men and money than their primary purpose of acquiring quality education.
In her confession, a female student in Lagos said: “My first night was with a man who had just come from Malaysia and after a long night of s*x, he gave me N10,000. Though I was happy because, I was not used to getting that kind of money at once, I was angry because, the guy used me very rough in the night. He had so much energy and he never allowed me to sleep. He took me on more than five times and I was very weak.”Runs’ and ‘Aristoism’ in the ivory towers:
This is not a sad tale from a Nollywood movie, it is true life story.
Things were tough for Elizabeth and her widowed mother. But sending Elizabeth to the university was top priority for her. Her mother would never have guessed that disastrous blend of harsh conditions, bad company and wrong choices would lead Elizabeth into prostitution. Her mother would not know that Elizabeth told our reporters her story from a brothel.
Her bad company came in the person of a friend she calls Stephanie. She said: “I met Stephanie during our Matriculation ceremony in the school, we were and still are in the same department. But we did not really become close until we met at the party where we got talking and exchanged contacts. At first, I thought she was into lesbianism because of the way she was asking me about myself.
“Later she told me that, I did not deserve the kind of poor life style I was living in school and that I needed to upgrade myself. She introduced me to some friends who would call me when there was a party to attend. At one of the parties we attended, they introduced me to some ‘big’ men.
“At first I did not understand what was happening, until it was obvious that each girl had been paired up to have s*x with an old man. I was very reluctant about that and I angrily left the party. The next day in school, she was so angry with me and asked me why I behaved like that. After much convictions and persuasions, I succumbed to what she asked for…
After that first night, she never turned back from the trade. “I became used to the whole thing, and I was collecting more than N5,000 per night. I had to give a cut to the person who brought me deals, and send some money back home.”
She says if she finds a better source of income, she will desist from runs. But this is her life for now. Across citadels of learning, cases such as Elizabeth’s are very rampant.
Linda Okoye, an Aristo, at the Nigeria Institute of Journalism in Lagos attempted to give more insight into this. In an interview with Vanguard, she said: “There is no difference because they can both be classified as pros-titution. But what differs between the two is that Runs pay more than the normal pros-titution. From experience, I would say that runs are the advanced or high class pros-titution. Also, runs are a kind of contract profession while road side pros-titution is like daily s*x work whereby the person who does it is being paid based on the time she spends with her customer.
“For example, a normal pros-titute may collect N 2,000 for 15-20 minutes of s*x. But an Aristo can be on call for twenty-four hours. Another thing about the normal pros-titute is that they can have s*x with their customers on the road sides like beside banks and filling stations but runs girls use the best hotels. They have class. They work based on contracts and people who normally patronize them are rich men like company executives, politicians, businessmen among others.
What these rich men do is to contact these girls through an agent. These agents are like normal students. If you go to any higher institution, you will always find them there because they are the ones that bring business to the girls in schools. Sometimes you can get N250,000 or more to spend in one or two weeks with a rich man. So Runs girls are like high class pros-titutes. You don’t see them around often. They only come around if you have a job for them.” A 200-level student of University of Benin, Dorothy Akpenor (not real name) disclosed to Vanguard that her former roommate was involved in the runs business but she refused to join her friend.
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