Obalende: A place that never sleeps

by Oki Samson

some of the Call-Girls on duty

Obalende is a beehive of activities as it hosts military barracks, police posts, educational institutions, trading centres, and government offices.

Life on Moshalashi street, Ojo street, Toyan street, Keffi street and other adjoining neighborhoods are party-like especially at nights.

From 5pm every evening, everywhere is in frenzy with activities like cooking, frying, and packaging food and drinks and that goes on into the early morning.

That would just have been a jolly well tale but for unconscionable characters that are found also everywhere in the same area. It just simply fits the adage that good and evil dwell together.

Food vendors, tailors, drug sellers, homeowners settle with prostitutes, Indian hemp sellers, smokers; and the in-betweens who do the legal and the illegal. This place is a fertile ground for nefarious acts and can be a criminal hideout.

Girls as young as 13, can be easily lured into prostitution directly or indirectly by staying in this environment, while the boys are at risk of taking to crime. Speaking with Mr. Ibrahim Aina, a petty trader, who also charges phone batteries for a fee, he stated that they are into business for 24 hours and 7 days of the week all year round in the area.

He said: “Goods and services are in high demand and supply here. There is no dull moment. Once people start coming out, it is fun all through the night. You will notice some girls also; they usually flood the expressway and the streets in a chase to get patronage. Sometimes the police come to arrest them.”

Motorcycle riders and tricycle operators can be readily found in their hundreds both to have fun after the business of the day, also to pick passengers who will usually pay higher than daytime fares. Some have made the place their home where they spend their money on various food items and lay on their bikes as bed late into the night. Once it is dawn, the cracks around rundown structures turn to bathrooms where they pay fifty naira only (N50) to do their bathing.

New Telegraph also observed that scores of Indian hemp sellers and dealers sit around the junction at Ojo street, opposite the Army Barracks, wrapping various portions of the illicit drug for readily available smokers. Mr. Ibrahim stressed that nobody can arrest the sellers because some of the buyers sitting with them are soldiers, police officers and mobile police officers.

The community is also filled with various food joints, game centres, bars, kerbab otherwise known as suya spots and the likes.

A call girl as they are fondly called, who preferred to be simply addressed as Ife, said she came from Osun State to find job in Lagos. In the lodge where she stays, she claims there are VIP rooms with air conditioners that go for N5,000, regular rooms for N1,500 while there are small spaces for short service which goes for as low as N200. She said they charge their customers N6,000 for all night, N2,000 for short service but they can bargain.