A funny Lagos Ashawo story

ashawo

I find it rather odd that no one rates Lagos prostitutes’ hangouts online, I guess most people do not want to run the risk of being caught promoting such an illegal activity. Same applies to me, if not for my love for writing I wouldn’t even write this, but here I am about to tell you the story of this Ashawo spot along Ogudu road, Ojota. What actually attracted my attention was not the half-clad, totally unclothed or red-bleached ladies. What drew my attention were the guys, each time I see them, I cannot help laughing (in my mind, of course, to avoid getting a beating of a lifetime).

For the past three months, business has daily brought me to Ogudu, most times I leave for home very late at night, so I get to see the somewhat comic transactions that occur between these ladies of the unclad world and the guys of the konji world. Just for the record, ‘konji na bastard shaa’.

Across the road, opposite the Ashawo building is a two story-building whose gate is always locked, during the day, both the Ashawo building and the two-story building are usually deserted and devoid of activity. Once the sun gets shy and disappears behind the confidence of the moon, one could immediately notice a gradual increase in human traffic on both sides of the road.

Across from the Ashawo lodge, the ‘darkness rice’ woman, first of all, begins to setup for the day, how she cooks her food or what ingredients she uses, no one knows, all we know is that once the last ray of daylight is gone, she emerges with her coolers of food and basin of pepper stew to serve us whatever it was she had cooked, the strangest thing about this woman is that she doesn’t even make any attempt to lighten up her makeshift night kiosk. She transacts all her business in the darkness, sometimes with the aid of a frowning torch.

The two-story building was just beside the ‘darkness rice’ woman, so every evening the ‘konji boys’ would patronize her first before patronizing the prostitutes across the road. Ok, the funny truth is that these boys didn’t actually patronize the prostitutes. They would stand in front of the two-story building and watch the prostitutes mill about in their undies across the road. Overtime I have noticed that this was a sort of sacred ritual among these boys, as evening stretched into late night, they would gradually swell in number from a few to over thirty, standing in all manner of strange angles, drinking in the nudity on display across the road, while leaving the rest to their imagination. I do not know how much exactly it costs to transact business with these ladies, but I think standing on the other side of the road daily, starring at a horde of naked women and fantasizing about what could be is not the best, if you ask for my advice, it would be the same advise Nike would have given them.