With nightclubs still closed, Lagos strippers now take the party to homes of the rich

Innovative nightclub owners in Lagos and the strippers on their payroll, have found a way around lockdown season

Dressed in knee-length satin outfit and comfy shoes, Adanna jogs to the waiting jeep parked on Bode Thomas in Surulere, Lagos, where she meets two other ladies sitting pretty.

Time check: 5pm.

She throws her backpack to the floor of the car, engages in small talk with the other women and the driver--a young man ferrying them all to a posh apartment in Lekki, highbrow Lagos.

The jeep would make a few more stops in Ikeja and Ogba to pick up other young women before hitting the 3rd mainland bridge enroute the Island.

Adanna and the girls are headed for a lavish, raunchy, house party in Lekki where they would soon swap knee length dresses for bumshorts, panties and bras or go nude if it came to that; while partying till the sun comes up.

Partying till they drop.

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It’s a strip club without being in a strip club.

Young men would go on to show appreciation for the twerks and booty smacking by spraying Naira notes and pouring Champagne on the naked women in front of them.

Lap dances are separately paid for.

Even though the federal and Lagos state governments have eased coronavirus induced restrictions in the city since May 4, churches, mosques, schools and nightclubs remain shuttered.

“We have to survive and stripping is all we know at this point,” says Abigail, another young woman who has been to many of these erotic and risque house parties since the lockdown season commenced in late March.

Jonathan, who has hosted one of these house parties in Ikoyi alongside his friends, tells Pulse that club goers had to look for another way to unwind until the government permits the clubs and pubs to return to business.

He also confesses that the nightclub owners or management are part of the deal.

“My brother, the human body is not firewood and I’m sure you know this. What we do is that we reach an agreement with the strip clubs, pay them an agreed sum of money.

“These strip clubs then put phone calls across to the girls and tell them that they will be at so-so houses for strip parties on certain dates. Everybody wins in the end, bro. We have to keep the clubs and strippers in business, lockdown or not,” Jonathan says with a throaty laugh.

However, some strippers have jumped into house parties on their own terms, without entering deals struck by strip club owners.

“I think I make even more money these days and my bosses are not aware. They don’t have to know, really. They understand that we have to survive somehow in this tough season and our bodies are our biggest assets,” says Lizzy, who has stripped at some of the rave-of-the moment nightclubs in Ikeja, Victoria Island, Festac, Ikoyi and Lekki. “We have to keep ‘hoiling’ this booty to keep it juicy for when the clubs return,” she adds, throwing her head backwards in hysterical laughter.

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At the Lekki erotic house party around 5:30am, Adanna and 10 other ladies, drunk and exhausted from twerking and lap dancing all night, lie spread-eagled on couches in the expansive living room strewn with empty bottles of all kinds of alcoholic beverages.

Dress up babes, we have to go drop you off now!” orders Tunde, a thickset man in his 30s with biceps that have been manufactured in gyms.

Outside in the parking lot, a range of cars are at the ready to take the girls to locations across town, from whence they came the day before.

Adanna slips into her satin dress, straps her backpack and lurches to her designated jeep. She’ll be at the next strip house party when she receives the call to show up at one--wherever that may be. She was after all born ready.

For now, she needs to go catch some sleep and recharge those batteries. The day is still young.