The investigation revealed that the girls, hailing from Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Enugu, and Imo states, had been lured to the facility under pretenses.
PUNCH
GODFREY GEORGE writes on how underage girls are lodged in hotels by men for illicit acts while hotel administrators look the other way
Shock was the reaction that greeted a now-viral video of a young boy who captured himself half-naked in a hotel in Lagos State with a girl his age.
Both kids were jumping on the bed at one point in the video, which has now been circulated widely on social media.
After the jumping, they both stood in front of the mirror in a sexually suggestive fashion and gave off romantic looks. Before the 26-second video came to an end, both teenagers locked lips and gave a wide grin on camera.
This outraged Nigerians who wondered how they got access to that level of privacy in a hotel facility in the country that is supposed to be reserved for adults. The age of adulthood in Nigeria is 18 and the kids in the video were barely teenagers.
In 2023, a similar video was circulated. This time, there were three young boys and a young girl who were almost unclad dancing to a popular Nigerian tune on camera.
They looked intoxicated, as all four of them were seen smoking from one stick of what looked like marijuana or cigarette. One of the boys held a red cup and sipped the content slowly, giving wild laughter after every sip.
The girl was seen beckoning on another person who was not visible in the video to come and help her, as, according to her, the boys were ‘killing her’.
“These boys are so bad. They want to kill me o,” she said and fell on the bed, laughing as she did.
The incident, our correspondent gathered, happened in a local hotel in Sagamu, Ogun State.
Residents of the area who spoke to our correspondent confirmed that it was a regular sight to see young people use the hotel for their parties.
A chief in the area, Mr Tunji Adekola, said he was the one who reported the hotel to the police in the area for playing loud music and disturbing the peace in the area, not knowing that something sinister went on behind the shadows.
He said, “It was after my report, that several people came forward to say some men in the area took some underage girls to the hotel where they perform their illicit acts. Girls not up to 16 are always seen in the area, skimpily dressed.”
Another resident, Mrs Chinasa Ochiko, said the place is nicknamed ‘Ibongi Bar’ because there were no restrictions to the illicit acts that go on there.
“Children of 15 years old and even below are seen in the area even at night. Although the place has been shut down by the authorities, other hotels in the area still allow young girls to lodge there with men old enough to be their fathers,” she said.
‘What did I do wrong?’
Another young girl, in 2024, was recorded in another viral video on TikTok in Eleme, Rivers State, coming out of a hotel room in a popular hotel in the area half-dressed. The hotel said to be owned by a politician, runs a nightclub, a strip bar and what they termed “ladies’ night”.
