Despite the10pm to 4am curfew imposed by President Muhammadu Buhari in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Lagos State as part of measures to curtail the Coronavirus pandemic, commercial sex workers in Abuja, the nation’s capital, are having a field day under the cover of darkness.
Chairman of the FCT Ministerial Enforcement Task Team on COVID-19 restrictions, Ikharo Attah, lamented the development on Sunday while monitoring compliance by operators of nightclubs, bars and gardens in Kubwa, Gwarimpa and Wuse districts of Abuja.
While expressing concern over the large number of suspected commercial sex workers around buildings housing the nightclubs at Kubwa, a suburb of Abuja, Attah said, “The presence of the ladies of the night is a violation of the curfew because they are not on the exemption list of essential workers.
Their presence made us to carry out full checks on some nightclubs which are truly closed. At moments like this, we expect them to stop the unholy trade in their own interest because the men who may patronize them may be COVID-19 positive. We believe that if we relax too much, with the number of positive COVID-19 cases on the rise it would not be good for the city”.
Attah, however, said reports of nightclubs and bars operating during the curfew hours were false. “We received several calls that (a nightclub and bar) located at Lobito Crescent in Wuse 2 was fully operational. But when we got there we discovered that it wasn’t true. A bar operating at a plaza located opposite the nightclub was the one operating and playing very loud music which necessitated the calls and complaints we got from residents of the area. We shut down the bar and confiscated some of its loudspeakers which were handed over to Enforcement officials from the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB)”.
He said the team would be extending its checks on nightclubs in the suburbs of Abuja, while appealing to residents of the FCT to stay at home during the curfew periods to avoid endangering their lives.
