There is a report that claims Calabar, Cross River State capital, is famous as the home of bevy and succulent women. Their welcoming disposition gives the city a warm and alluring ambience to many a visitor to the city.
The bulk of these women are girls from tertiary educational institutions in the city. Teenage secondary school girls along with their city colleagues who are also attractive make the population of women in the city burst at the seam. To keep body and soul together, many of them resort to “hustling”, a nomenclature for part-time prostitution prevalent in the city.
These ‘hustlers’ operate from their hostels and homes during nocturnal hours. They roam the streets, especially around places with active night life like Atekong Drive, Marian Road, Effanga Mkpa Street, Edabor Street,Third Avenue, Second Avenue and highbrow eateries where people, particularly visitors, congregate at night and can afford to pick them up for a fee to satisfy their sexual appetite.
There are, however, indications that the activities of these ‘hustlers’ are threatened by girls from Cameroon and Niger Republic who, recently, descended on Calabar and are systematically offering “better services” at cheaper fees to teeming clients. These dark skinned new entrants, aged between 20 and 25 years, seem poised to take over the trade and the local girls do not seem to be finding it funny.
These Cameroonian and Nigerien girls, apart from being classy like some of the Calabar tertiary education institution girls, are available (night and day), which gives them the edge as they give clients the opportunity to take a shot at them whenever they want it unlike the local ‘hustlers’ who are available mostly at night.
Unyoke, a young man, who operates an ice cream spot in front of a famous fast food spot along Atekong Drive/Marian Road , told Sunday Vanguard that the girls are sex machines who can do anything anywhere because they have an “I don’t care attitude”.
Sunday Vanguard investigation revealed that, unlike the local ‘hustlers’ who are predominantly students who come out mostly at night and position themselves along strategic parts of the city ostensibly for fear of being recognized by colleagues or neighbors, these Cameroon and Niger girls are braggadocios and walk about boldly around the city in the day and traverse popular night clubs, fast food and beer joints to solicit for patronage.
They take residence in cheap hotels with fees ranging between N2,000 and 3,000 daily. So, clients, at any time of the day, don’t have to face the headache of looking for joints where to pay for ‘short rest’. They can simply join the girls right in their rented rooms where the cost is built into her charges.
“These girls are everywhere in the city and they are more or less sex machines as men sometimes wait for their turns; this is the first time I am seeing a man wait in his car or sit at the bar and wait for the person inside to come out before going in to do the same thing the other person just did in the same place”, Christian Edah, a bar attendant in one of the hotels told Sunday Vanguard.
