I am almost seventy now, but in my younger and virile days all you got for visiting and performing at the whorehouse was what a friend called the “G4.” The nastiest thing about G4 was that it caused inflammation of the epididymis. You know you have a stranger in you when you have burning sensation in your private zone, have difficulty urinating and there is a foul smelling milky discharge oozing out of the tunnel.
Besides G4, you occasionally get warts and some other inconveniences, but really, G4 was the main worry — the sort of worry that was not beyond a healthy doze of penicillin, and later, ampicillin, spectinomycin tetracycline, amoxicillin and other antibiotics. Damn, I miss the 1950s through the 1970s! Those days are long gone.
Today, an escapade and exploration to the whorehouse could get you any of a dozen other inconveniences. Whatever you do and however you do it, you want to stay away from the big-three: syphilis, herpes and HIV/AIDS. They are nasty. The latter has the potential of messing with ones quality of life, or shortening ones lifespan. You therefore don’t go into the rain without an umbrella. Never!
The way I see it, things are changing and are becoming unpredictable: to think that a simple thing such as sex have the potential to do damages is just so sad and annoying. And just this week, the scientific community announced that oral sex — common oral sex — can cause cancer and other inconveniences. Common, what is the world turning into?
If you know Lagos very well, you must know Ikeja; and if you know Ikeja very well, you must know most of the whorehouse along the major roads and districts. But if Ikeja is not your type of zone, well then, you may want to look to places like Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki, the VGC and some other joints. Otherwise go East or go North to Abuja. Abuja is a special place. I like it out there.
Now that I live in Nigeria, I take it as a leisure pursuit to visit Abuja on a regular basis. You see, Abuja has it all: from slaughterhouses to penal complexes, and from grinders to rollercoaster to wind tunnels. Aside from the aforementioned places, there are the people — the pretenders, the schadenfreude, the narcissists and the masochists, the dream merchants, conductors, street urchins and the pajapaja and the agberos. And then there are the killers of optimisms and killers of dreams.
After almost eight weeks of living in Nigeria, and after several visits to Abuja, I have come to one realization, and that is that whatever you want (other than clear conscience, good sense and common sense) can be found in Abuja. You see, this is not where you come to talk about visions and grand ideas; this is not the place you come to talk about solving problems. In so many ways, this is an artificial city, a city lacking in profundity, insight and substance.
But in spite of its limitations and nonsensities, there is money to be made here. There is money in Abuja. The petrodollars, petropounds and petroeuros make life and dreams possible in Abuja. If you presently live in the US, the UK or any other country in the world earning less than a quarter million dollars a year, you are wasting your time and your life. Come home, come to Abuja. There is money to be made here. I am telling you, come home!
The halls and corridors of power and influence in Abuja are not that different from the walls, beds and floor of whorehouses anywhere else. People are looking to screw and be screwed. Politically, there are incestuous relationships everywhere. And so too are political gays and lesbians, cross dressers, hermaphrodites, bisexuals, heterosexuals and all species in between, looking to screw and or be screwed.
The walls in Abuja have secrets the walls cannot divulge; the beds know and see things they can never tell; and the floors have been walked on by people who believe they can move mountains and or command the rain to fall or stop.
And while there are medications for G4 and other ailments, there is nothing to cure the wastefulness, the recklessness, the greed and avarice that permeate the pores and marrow of Abuja. Even so, Abuja is a fun city with special whorehouses.
It is a fun place; a place to have a jolly good time. And let me tell you: Heidi Lynne Fleiss, Sydney Biddle Barrows aka Mayflower Madam, and Xaviera Hollander have nothing — absolutely nothing — on the pimps and madams in Abuja.
On my way back to Port Harcourt, I decided to voyage by road as I have friends and relatives and old classmates I wanted to visit with. Also, there are fame whorehouses along the way. But men, was I surprised or what?! What did I see along the way?
I’ll tell you the next time we meet. For now however, let me just say that I saw men and women who are weak and beaten and hungry; men and women with wrinkles and trough all over their faces, hands and feet; and I saw men and women with melancholic disposition — as if their souls were ready to take flight of their body any minute now. Welcome to Nigeria!
