Two
days after I wrote my piece on “When runs become the norm on campuses”
(November 29, 2012), I got a call from an anonymous student caller who simply
referred to himself as an undergraduate in one of the ‘big’ universities in the
south west. In the almost one hour we spent on the phone-at the expense of my
caller- discussing issues on campuses I learnt quite a lot and I wept for this
country. My caller told me that the student union officials I quoted in the column
were right in their assertions and I should not struggle with the issue of
percentage. He said he is a pimp and he’s not apologetic about it; along the
line he said: “Pimps are the most successful businessmen on campuses” which I’m
using as the title for the column today.
In that piece, I had written that: “One of them told me
‘authoritatively’ that about 80 per cent of students in tertiary institutions
in Nigeria engage in one form of ‘runs’ or the other. “Runs,’ according to him
“cuts across prostitution, peddling leaked examination question papers, drug
trafficking, cultism, writing exams on behalf of other students, acting as
middle men for Juju priests, acting as ‘leg men’ between dubious lecturers and
student etc. I told him that 80% is quite a high percentage to categorise
students, but he stood his ground claiming he’s right with his assertion.”
After our discussion I “filed” the key points I could remember
somewhere on my laptop hoping to revisit it sometime only to read the report by
Gilbert Alasa, a student of University of Benin, Benin City. The report
compelled me to address the issue while it is still hot. My caller gave me
insights into how the “business” operates and why some of them that are “bold”
go into it. He claims to be a 300 level Economics undergraduate and discovered
the business “by chance”. “I gained admission into the university in 2009″ he
told me “but things were really tough for me initially because I come from a
very poor background, for most of my first year and the first semester of my
200 level, I eat only once a day. But what I lacked through poverty, I gained
by being forceful and bold, that boldness brought me into the business”.
Giving me a bird’s eye view of the “business” he said there are
different categories of pimps, there are high and lower cadre. The high cadres
are those that play on the international scene, those handling clients that
need the service of girls abroad. “When you work for clients of this nature you
select girls with international passport who must have travelled out of Nigeria
at least once. This is the best part of the business I love because the clients
and middle men are polished, polite and you are paid up front, so it has a lot
to do with trust and carriage.”
This cadre is usually interested in Nigerian girls that can
grace their parties or other functions abroad; he recounted a story where he
organized thirty girls from three campuses for a former Governor for a party in
the Caribbean. The girls, he claims, were flown out on a chartered flight and
when they came back “they were fully loaded with gifts of all nature, I got my
first Blackberry from one of the girls”. Since it may be sometime difficult to
find thirty willing girls from the same institution, he said they usually
encroach into another pimp’s territory, but they have to settle the pimp
depending on the number of girls recruited.
The second category, according to my caller, is those that play
on the Nigerian scene. They are basically interested in one night stands or
overnight parties. This is the category where politicians and business moguls
play. But he stated that these people work with people they can trust and
ensure that they seize all Blackberry or camera phones from the girls before
bringing them over because of fear for their reputation. The girls, he says,
understand this part of the deal and believe that a night without calls will do
them no harm.
As a student of Economics, my caller said his future is already
guaranteed as the forces of demand and supply will ensure that he is in
business from both his clients and the girls. He said he’s already a
millionaire at 23 years old without stealing, cheating, engaging in drugs or
cultism. “Sir, I’m a very serious student, I don’t joke with my studies and my
lecturers know that. You know there is unemployment in the country and if as a
student I am gainfully employed, should I be worried when I graduate? I have
even employed two bright boys on campus working for me, when I leave I’d be
overseeing them from off campus”.
As our discussion progressed, he told me he reads Ngozi- my late
wife’s column weekly and mine since I took over after her death- but feels we
are naïve moralists who fail to see that times have changed, that in our era
things were not as tough as they are now. At a point I asked if he ever thought
about the girls he recruits for his clients and whether he would recruit his
sister for one of them? The line went silent at the other end for a while, then
he answered that some of the girls use the money to pay their fees and take
care of their needs. I was patient enough to drive home my point, which I
believed he understood but was blinded by the gains of the business to answer.
What intrigued me about my anonymous caller was his level of
coherence in defending what he believed in. Even though we play on two
diametrically opposing camps, I sensed a leader that can be mentored to channel
his intellect toward something he can be proud of. I tried the best I could to
let him know that any form of success predicated on the debasement of another
human being is not true success. Agreed, he may have three cars on campus and a
room to himself, that in itself does not amount to success. If he’s reading
this today, we can still talk.
After he hung up I reflected deeply on the strange call. What I
could deduce was a young man who was already feeling guilty for his actions and
is trying to look for a vent to pour out his heart and maybe in the process be
“commended” for being enterprising. But I believe it never crossed his mind
that he is putting the future of some girls in jeopardy by providing a platform
for promiscuity. I looked at the other side of the coin as well, which is
poverty and I asked myself if he had money would he have gone into the
business? When I asked him that question he was silent and honest enough to say
he does not know. Throughout our discussion, never for once did my caller
falter, he spoke impeccable English, unlike some undergraduates these days
which led me to believe the aspect of his being a serious student.
Alasa’s report published as our cover story last week
corroborates what my caller told me. According to the report, many
undergraduates are smiling to the bank, courtesy of a booming business called
“pimping” on campus. They (pimps) cruise about in posh cars while their
colleagues cramp into rickety campus shuttles. They live large on campus even
though the source of their wealth cannot be openly discussed. From the comfort
of their off-campus hostels, they negotiate high-profile deals with powerful
personalities while their mates sweat it out in stuffy libraries in school.
While we debate the falling standard of education,
infrastructural decay, incessant ASUU strike, skyrocketing fees and the myriad
of problems confronting tertiary education in Nigeria, we now know that we have
a bigger social issue to contend with in a society that has gone haywire.
By: Agbo Agbo....The Nation
Tags
Society