Opebi Night Club where girls dance naked

Sulaimon Olanrewaju

THE club is along the popular Opebi Road in Lagos. The façade is serene, lined up with exotic cars. But the frontage belies what happens inside. The club is not the usual club. It is a club where female nude dancers entertain male guests. Strange as it might seem, the club is not patronized by riff raffs, the people who go to the club are respectable members of the society. Last Wednesday around 9.00 pm, when TLM visited the place, all the patrons were well dressed. Not a single person put on a native attire, not even t-shirts, all were in office shirts, mostly white. Some were even in suits. Many of them were probably company executives. The impression was that the patrons had just closed from work and called at the club on their way home.

Although, it is called a club, a bouncer who spoke to TLM, said the outfit, which started last year, did not have any registered member. According to him, the club was not ready for that yet. Getting into the club attracts a flat fee of N1,000. However, in spite of paying the stipulated fee, anyone who does not submit himself to the regulations of the club will be shown the door. The first of the regulations is that a patron must allow himself to be searched thoroughly before being allowed to go in. The reason, the bouncer explained, is to ensure that no one carries dangerous weapons into the club.

“All we need to lose patronage is for word to get around that robbers came here. We don’t want that to happen, so, we search everyone before they go in”, he explained. On getting into the club, two things happen almost instantaneously. The first is that a girl, 21 or 22, just in pants and bra, the sight of who will cause a stir even in the body of the Pope, comes to you welcoming you with a dance. “Hello, my name is Lauretta. You are welcome. I will entertain you”, she says as she takes a seat beside you. Your protestations make no sense; you can’t stay alone in the club. Then, the bartender, a lady of course, also skimpily dressed, though not naked like the dancers, asks you what you will like to drink.

The club is not for “softies”, so soft drinks are not on sale there. The only non-alcoholic drinks available in the club are energy drinks. The cheapest is N700. Courtesy demands that you entertain your partner, so you ask what she will like to take. Of course, it is stout.

Then your eye goes to the dance floor. There is a topless girl, gyrating to the loud music blaring from the loud speakers. She dances with so much dexterity that the whole of her body sends out a message with every move she makes. She turns her hips that way and the other with her breasts jutting out correspondingly. Before you can fully take that in, the main dancer, in one swift move, removes her pants and she is stark naked giggling and daring you to join her on the dance floor if you could.

As you force your eyes away from her and turn to a side of the club, there you see a completely naked girl massaging her companion. She is busy fondling with every sensitive part of the companion’s body. The man, with eyes closed and head tilted to the back, is in a different world. He is completely lost to the reality of the world.

You look away from there and turn the other side, what you are confronted with is a stark naked girl vigorously moving her hips on the Y front of her partner. The man is not docile; he is also busy working on the partner, from her head to the upper region and the midriff.

Everybody in one way or the other is engaged in one erotic activity or the other. “Now that you have seen everything, will you give me some attention?” Your companion asks you. “Yeah, I am sorry. How long have you been doing this?” You manage to blurt out.
“I started last year.” “How much are you paid to do this?” “The club does not pay us. We live on the tips we get from people like you.” “Really. Do the customers make love to you here?”

“No, sex is not allowed here. You can do whatever you like with any of the girls but you can’t make love to them here.” “If anybody wants to have you for the night…””He will have to pay N2,500 to the club before I can go with him.” “How much will you be paid?””No fixed price, we can always talk about that.” “The club only opens in the evening, what do you do during the day?”
“I rest, preparing for the evening.”

You get up and decide to go out. “What is the matter? Don’t you like me?””You are a beautiful girl, but I just remember I have to get somewhere fast.” “What about your drink?” “You can have that.” “Won’t you even give me anything?” You fumbled in your pockets, find a N1,000 note and give her just for you to escape. As you get out, the bouncer asks you why you are leaving so early and you say you just want to have a feel of the place and you will be back sometime soon.

“But why have a club like this?” You ask the bouncer. “What we do here is a professional job. Our girls can take you to heaven and back. It is not everybody that can do that. Then, we know that it is not everybody that has a peaceful home. For those who cannot go home directly after office hour for one reason or the other, we provide an avenue for enjoyment. Some people stay here till 5am only to get home and start preparing for work.

“Then”, he continues, “you know there is so much stress in the country these days, people come here to ease tension. By the time our girls work on you, you will be transported into the seventh heaven; you will not remember any political or economical problem.”

That is true except you are a reporter who has to file your story and cannot therefore afford the luxury of being transported to any heaven while on duty.

Ipaja, where residents contend with poor facilities

Ayeleso Oladele

One of the ditches on the major road
leading to Ipaja community.SOME weeks ago, when Lagos Magazine featured Ipaja community as a place of several religious activities, where peace and harmony were highly esteemed, to some residents of this big community, it was just like featuring one side of their life while the other aspect, which they described as very important to their daily living was partially mentioned and greatly neglected.

The Ipaja community, which its development beats everyone’s imagination in terms of population and the rate at which new buildings spring up almost everyday, turning their old forest into town, according to the residents deserves much attention from the government than what it receives.

Passing comments at newspaper joint just by the church bus stop in Ipaja, young and old men alike lament the deplorable situation the community was subjected to due to what they described as total neglect by the government. Although, they said the community is peaceful, calm and well situated geographically, bounded by different other developing communities, but they claimed, that social infrastructural development is not commensurate with what is obtainable in other communities. During their political campaign, they claimed that the politicians never ceased in promising them good hospitals, reconstruction of the community major road, new transformer to generate power, but, they said none has redeemed their promises.

In Ipaja community, it is worthy of note that most of the residents choose to live in Ipaja and work outside Ipaja simply because, industries are conspicuously unavailable. This is an area where different categories of people live together in harmony, work outside the community, and flourish together, without suspicion.

Lagos Magazine in its bid to ascertain their claims spoke with some other residents individually. Mr. Sola Daramola, a civil servant who lives at Command road condemned poor power supply to Ipaja. Mr. Daramola who claimed that he set up a small business some years back has no option than to pack it up simply because of what he described as epileptic power supply. “My brother, in this community, ours is different from others.

Sometimes, I laugh at residents of some areas in Lagos when they lament on just a day power off. Here in Ipaja, at times three weeks, four weeks, there would be no light, to iron our clothes, oh, God, and we claim we are part of this country; this does not prevent them from bringing their bills at the end of the month. Go and look at our roads, they are nothing to write about at all”.

Pastor Olatunji who believes that the state government has not forgotten the community, cited example of two roads that were constructed recently, that is, Ipaja –Command road, and Adefemi Hospital – Abesan road. He said that this is clear evidence that government can still do better for the community if intimated with some of the challenges facing the community.

“Of a fact, the situation here is not all that friendly, we travel a long distance to get water, most of the time, there is no light, some of the roads are in critical position, especially, during the rainy season, all these make life difficult for some of us, especially, those of us working outside Ipaja, only to come home in the night, water would be inaccessible, and there would be no light. On weekly basis, I spend nothing less than N1,000 on fuel for my generator” he said.

Mr. Kazeem Oyetunji, popularly known as Alfa Kazeem, who initially declined to speak with Lagos Magazine also lamented various shortcomings of the community. Kazeem who believes that the economy of the community hinges basically on those infrastructure that the community is lacking, also believes that the future of the community might be in jeopardy if nothing is done now.

Meanwhile, when visited in his Palace at off Command road in Ipaja, the King of the community, His Royal Highness, Oba S.A Akinniyi (JP), Ajagungbade 1 who is majorly concerned about the well being of his people as the King was not relenting on his efforts to make sure that life is more bearable for an average Ipaja resident.

While speaking with the Lagos Magazine, Oba Akinniyi who commended the Lagos state government on recent development in the state said he desired that the government of Lagos State provides more infrastructure such as good road, improvement on the power supply to the community, establishment of a high standard hospital with state-of-art equipment, pipe borne water and companies.

Pastor Olatunji said that if the government could intervene in the situation of the community by providing good road and regular power supply, he said, it would entice investors to establish branches of their companies in Ipaja community. “Imagine, there is no bank in this community, no ATM machine, no public hospital, not even a branch of insurance company, you have to travel out to either Iyana Ipaja or any other neighbouring community before any transaction could be made. I know, if there is good road, the government can force some of those companies to relocate from Victoria Island to areas like this, to decongest the unnecessary traffic that characterise V.I. Governor Fashola should extend the Mega City syndrome to this Ipaja” he said.