Sex for everything: A new fad?

Sat, Jun 6, 2020

By publisher

13 MIN READ

Crime

ONCE it was sex for marks, sex for jobs, sex for favours… it is now sex for everything, writes Jubal Kanayo.

Towards the end of 2019, the media space was inundated with stories of sex for marks from Nigerian universities. Lecturers set the rules and ask for sex if lady undergraduates are to pass their courses.

This went on for many years and the complaints were overlooked, ignored and filed away by many a university management.

Until the ladies decided to start setting lecturers up, videoing the unholy adventures and catching many of them pants down.

The investigation on BBC uncovered some lecturers fully involved in the sex-for-mark ring, among whom were Dr. Boniface Ibeneghue of the University of Lagos and Dr. Kwame Paul Butakor of the University of Ghana.

Recall the 2016 expose by a national daily which resulted in the sacking of 13 lecturers and demotion of 16 others found culpable of harassing students in the institution?

Some of the students made huge revelations. One did state that: “…The better ones among the lecturers give us the option of paying by cash for the course or finding a lady who will sleep with them on our behalf before we can pass. Passing a course cost us between N10,000 and N20,000.

“Paying by cash is for those who want just a ‘pass’. But if I find a girl who will sleep with the lecturer on my behalf, I’ll get an A, for sure. I’ll get at least 90 per cent in the course, even if I write nothing exceptional in the exam. This option of paying with money instead of sex only comes from about one or two of the lecturers out of ten. Some of the lecturers tell us point-blank that they don’t need our money. They will tell us to find them ladies who will sleep with them before we can pass their courses. They teach very important courses, so you cannot ignore them. They will keep failing us until we’re given notice of withdrawal from the institution. It’s something that has happened to a friend who claimed to be a born-again Christian. The guy wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination afresh and is now at the University of Benin.

“So, this is what we guys do: If I have a loyal girlfriend and I beg her, she can sleep with the lecturer on my behalf. The lecturer picks the hotel of his choice on the day we’ve agreed. I will book for it. I’ll order for the meal he’ll eat before the action. He will sleep with my girl and give me my A. I’ll give the lady my name so that the lecturer will know she’s from me. But if my girlfriend says no, then I have to hire someone else. I will get a prostitute from outside, pay her, book for the hotel the lecturer has picked, order for their meal and then I get an A in his course. I have done this for three lecturers now.”

In the camps of internally displaced persons, sex is a currency many do not hide or underplay. They give sex for food, shelter, opportunities, job and, even, household and non-food items.

A Twitter use, @JKFagge, tweeted that: “I became numb when I discovered that some women at IDP camps have to have sex to eat the food government and iNGOs provide for them simply because a man is in charge of the food supply”.

The former vice-president of the Presidential Commission on Northeast Initiative (PCNI), Alhaji Tijani Tumsah, once told this writer that: “we have heard of issues with the IDP camps in the Norhteast, over rape and other forms of sexual issues. We hope that we can get to the bottom of the issues in good time. It is improper and it demeans the support we offer these people and debases the organisations helping them. We will work together to curb this,” he pointed out.

That was in 2017. Two years later, the PCNI handed over to the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC)

As far as the corporate and entertainment world are concerned, sex for jobs and roles in movies, connections, space on the runway for models, business etc is thriving. While sex for food, grades and many other things tilt towards males, the scale is more balanced when it comes to sex for jobs. Sex is demanded for promotion and, sometimes, to meet specific targets given to staff. Female employees are encouraged to sleep with ‘big shots’ in return for huge deposits in a bank.

“Bro, leave that thing. You see these aspiring actors? With respect to those who have worked hard, some have not seen the sun because of the conditions put before them; they must sleep with a director, writer, producer or someone of note or lose the chance of featuring in a movie,” pointed out a Nollywood practitioner, Prince Shalom.

Buttressing his point, Yul Edochie took to Twitter to join the debate: “I condemn sex for jobs completely. If na ur way, hear this advice. If you promise a girl a job in exchange for sex, once she gives you make sure you do not fail her. If she swear for you, your own don finish. This matter has wrecked many men especially Nollywood practitioners.”

For models, whether runway or face models, their experiences are mind-boggling.

A Twitter user once tweeted: “I had to leave and go to school o. I thank God I have a better job. They wanted to finish me, just because say I wan model. Agent will take and pass you to screener, the owner of the agency wants some, too. When you think you are done, the ones who think you are gay are there to try you. The hurdles are too much. I counted the cost and at the end of the day, I decide say e no reach. In the end, after you use your body make sacrifice, how much you make?”

Another female job-searcher on Twitter called out to ladies to seek self-employment as an option.

“Some men are heartless. I give up! Ladies, the best thing is to employ yourself. There might be someone on your timeline who can help me with capital to start business.”

She went on to narrate how she was told to bring her credentials for a job interview, only to get there to meet someone who collected her credentials and told her to go, that he would give her a call. The man, Yemi Adewale, told her plainly that she would have to go to bed with him if she needs the job as badly as she said she did.

Another Twitter user, @SpontaneousKemi, replied her: “Lol, this is what we young ladies face in the hands of the foolish men who can’t even help their sisters not to talk of another lady. I resigned from a job around 2016 when the chairman of the company decided to ask me out and invite me to a hotel for a so called meeting”.

Many have experiences which revolve around these unpleasant requests.

Blessing, who works part-time for a brand advertiser in Ogoja was livid that even after spending the energy to dance and earn her place in the two-hour gig, she was told that she would have to see the supervisor after the gig. She agreed.

“When we were done, I asked them why they let me dance first. I told them that I got it on my own without their help and that I have nothing to give them. If they do not call me next time, no problem. But we are not all like that. How you go say make I come give you body after I don suffer get the thing finish?”

A BBC style writer, Omoyeme Anofojie, narrated her experience.

“Growing up as a teenager, I have always admired runway models and sometimes even practiced walking like them at the corridor of my house. So when the opportunity came to register with an agency as a model during my first year in the university, I jumped at it. I had saved up the registration fee of Ten Thousand Naira and I was excited when I was told I had been booked for a photo shoot studio session. It was all going smoothly until I was told to go nude. I looked at the shoot director and asked why? He smiled and said it’s a nude shoot, I have nothing to worry about. I was very uncomfortable and so I refused. He told the photographer to excuse us and gave me a pet talk, his words were ‘as a model, your body isn’t yours. Your body is the product and you should feel free to flaunt it’.

“Our next shoot was in 3 days but to my surprise it wasn’t at the studio but at his house. When I got there. He started talking about how big and famous I could be if only I played along. He stroked my hair and whispered in my ear: ‘Do you know you are a very sexy girl? A telecommunications company needs 3 girls for their next advert and I want you to be one of them’.

“I looked at him terrified as he ran his hands through my body.

‘You just have to play your cards well and I would add you to the list’.

“I managed to find my words and asked, what cards? He replied and said, “You would be my girl and I would ensure all the major jobs are yours. How else do you think girls get these jobs?” He asked, smiling and holding my hands. I removed my hand from his grip and told him I would think about it. He got furious and said: ‘That’s how you girls miss your chance in life! What’s there to think about? I am only trying to help you, unless you would keep coming for grooming sessions and wouldn’t get any job’.

“I was shaken. Is that what all models do? Why do I have to do this to get a gig? After all, I met the requirements. I left his place determined to never return.”

A taxi in Nigeria’s gradually bubbling capital, Abuja, who gave his name as simply Funsho, has lost count of the number of times many women who boarded his taxi and had no money to pay their fares have offered to pay with their bodies.

“Sometimes, they want to go to Maitama, but only tell you they have no money when they get there. Some want to go to Wuse or Gwarimpa and want to be the last to come down. Na that time, after you don beg them to come down, dem go tell you say dem no get money.”

But not all drivers are ready to take advantage.

“As you see us, we dey fear, too o. As we dey work for night, we dey fear, make person no go carry mammy water or problem for im family. Everytime I meet those kind of women, I have begged them to go with the money. But, where those kind women dey come from?” he wondered.

“How you wan use your body pay for transport of N200? Na so the body don cheap? Some of them are even as young as my pikin for house,” the bewildered man said.

A cleric and ardent lover of philosophy, Ubosi Olisadebe, agreed that the issue of sex for everything has eaten into the fabric of society.

“But, let us be honest; it has always been here with us. Recall the days of Sodom and Gomorrah? How about Babylon and many other nations from back then? This is not strange. You know, even though we all frown at sex, it is something we engage in secretly, because we do not think it should be a public spectacle. However, there are ways of obtaining it that are bad. Everything about sex is much better and relaxing when it is mutual.

“Sigmund Freud (1905) believed that life was built around tension and pleasure. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in an attempt to explain this dilemma of man, opined ‘that all tension is due to the build-up of libido (sexual energy) and all pleasure comes from its discharge’.

“However, Paul the Apostle, who was described by the Times Magazine as the ‘greatest man of the first century’, gave a more acceptable explanation when he zeroed in on the whole problem of human nature, saying ‘for I know that in my human nature dwells no good thing….’ When the human nature is given full freedom to manifest without the restraining power of the law and the society, the experience will always be degradation of values and character.

“Let us not be deceived; as long as we are humans and morality is part of our code, these things will always be with us as they have been for ages,” he pointed out.

“Maybe, we can make the work-place rules tighter, to ensure that women and men’s rights are not being violated. Everyone needs to be protected by the law. Imagine coming for an interview, thinking you will scale through on merit, only to discover that there are other things at play; one of them being the sexual urge of someone up there. It can be depressing,” stated human resources expert, Enebeli Fortune.

But he sees a way around the issue.

“The law is very sneaky about these things and smart people can always pick holes through them.

So, in my work-place, the firm I work for just gets everyone to sign a code of ethics. If you fall short of it, you get fired, after investigations. Every years, new bits are added and the staff who come in every year sign it. That way, over time, the code of ethics become fail-proof and everyone in the firm becomes bound by the code of ethics and maintains a good conduct.

“Organisations have ways of dealing with these things. They are not that difficult; what is difficult is the will-power to do the right thing.

“However, for places where these ethics do not exist, the law can be applied duly and vigorously. The Nigerian constitution says something about harassment, sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking, coerced sex, rape and the likes.

“While we pray for the healing of those who have experienced these terrible things, we ask the government to revisit our laws and ensure that loopholes like these are taken care of.

“Generally speaking, if you abuse someone’s rights, you have committed a crime against that person and it is against the law.”