Lagos strip club boss says he help girls achieve their dreams

Dr.Shina Eddo runs Cave strip bar, one of the most successful strip clubs in Ikeja. The club boasts of over 70 strippers most of whom are university undergraduates. In an interview with iCampus, Shina says he wouldn’t mind if his own daughter chooses to be a stripper. I've never seen a man  so proud of what he does, lol.  Biko, the interview is so long. Excerpts:

Where do you get the girls?

We don’t look for them, they look for us. Once you are able to position yourself in this business, the girls would come looking for you. We have accommodation here at no cost and they have all the freedom here, they are making good money and they catch all the fun. We have a clientele, the big boys come here, they come, they don’t pay anything for accommodation, they don’t pay for feeding, their welfares are well taking good care of and they make good money, so that is why they all keep tripping in. Other girls all over Nigeria, once they hear what we pay them here, they keep coming in and we keep having them, we should have about 70 girls if I am not mistaking.

From my interactions with the girls, I noticed some of them are educated and others are in the universities, How were you able to convince them? Was the money part of the luring factor?

Actually the kind of money they make help them to take care of a lot of issues, like most of them are in school and can imagine when you are in school and in a situation where you have to sleep with a guy to get 5/10 thousand or what have you but here you don’t have to sleep with anyone. In a strip club or you have to do is lap dance a guy or sit on him, when you sit on him, you wine and he gives you money, some can give you N5000, some can give you N10,000, some can even give you N20,000, it depends. So the kind of money they make here enables them to take care of their parents, some of them have kids, some of them help their siblings, those going to school take care of their school needs and sort a lot of issues for them.

In this place a girl makes up to N150, 000 in a day and in a week is six days because we open on Tuesdays to Sundays and we go off on Mondays. A girl makes up to a N150,000 in a week that is about N600,000 in a month and when she goes out to tell her friends that this is the kind of money she makes, her friend will want to come too and that is why they keep coming from different parts of the world. We have girls from Kenya, Cameroon, Ghana just name it.

Have you had any parent come here to fight you before?

No, we don’t take minors here, in Nigeria contest, a minor is somebody below 23 unlike overseas where a minor is somebody below 18 years of age, so once you are a minor we don’t allow you here in whatever capacity, weather as a dancer or a customer and for guys, once you are under 27 you are a minor and we will not let you in, you must be close to 30 before we let you in, you must be very matured and very responsible.

When you screen the girls what do you screen them for?

A lot of things, we screen them for their body, everything, we do a total system screening on them.

Do you teach them how to dance?

Yes of course, some that does not know how to dance learn from others that knows how too and sometimes in the evening they do practice, if they don’t understand they ask others, so basically they teach themselves. If you don’t know how to poll, we call it polling, you ask others whoknows better and once you are taught, the individual is good to go.

I learnt you have coordinators?

Yes, we have coordinators because of the numbers of girls we have unlike other clubs that don’t have coordinators because their girls are few but here we are talking about 70 girls and above ,so you need people to be looking at them. Besides you can see the size of this club, I am here at the front and something could be happening at the back and besides some customers will want to make love to the girls inside the club, so you need coordinators to monitor, to make sure that things are going on normal and also to ensure that the girls are doing the lap dance the way they are suppose to do it and also to ensure that their money does not disturb them because some of them will want to put the money in their bra and all that, as soon as they give them the money, the coordinators would collect the money and record it against their names. So that is why we have coordinators, we have four coordinators and they are gallant.

Have you had people try to make you feel guilty sometimes or do you feel guilty that you are promoting sex?

Guilt comes from the mind, you only feel guilty if you don’t know what you are doing but as far as what I am doing is good and people like it then I am good to go. I am just a fun provider, an entertainer.Big boys all over Lagos, men, women, they all come here despite the fact that we charge N5,000 at the gate, they still beg to come in, even if we tell them at the gate that we are not ready they still wants to come in. Like on Saturdays and Sundays, you will see all the foreign expatriates coming into Lagos, they all come here to have fun.

Perhaps Sunday is a free day?

Yes, Sunday is free but on Saturdays you will see all the foreigners in Lagos here on . And they are free, they have total freedom here, they are free to do whatever they want to do, they even enjoy here more than they enjoy abroad. They are so happy here.

What of a situation where a customer want to have sex with one of your girls?

Well, if you want to do that, you are free too, we just have your data such as phone number,address and we know where you are taking the girl too, we assure the girl of her protection and then she goes with you.

I met a girl here yesterday and says she stays here for 24 hours and that is the first time I learnt that people live here and I have discuss with some of them before who said the money they make here is take care of their parents. When you look at the positive side do you feel galvanised to do more? I know somebody who said shes in school, this is where she make money to pay her fees, I also knowof somebody who said she lives outside Lagos and she comes here to make money because she can’t do this in her state and go back. 

So sometimes when you look at those good sides do you feel galvanised to do more?

Of course, I am fulfilling their dreams for them. They are having their dreams fulfilled here and that is a great thing for me to do and I am the one making that possible for them. I am happy about it and I think I want to do more, I want to help people to accomplish their dreams.

How many universities girls do you have here?

They are so many, most of them are polytechnic students.Have lost counts.

Tell me the existence of the licence; is it state licence or federal licence?

It a state licence, Lagos state licence. You can see it on the wall as you enter.

And you pay yearly licence fee and tax?

Yes I do, you don’t get licence without paying and we pay our tax and every other thing. We pay all our dues to the government; we don’t owe the government anything.

Do you get harassed?

Not at all. All top government officers, politicians, this is their next home.

Do you give the girls ID cards?

Of course, they have their ID cards.

I am curious, what do the ID cards carry?

They are like dancers fabricator, for the dancers we don’t write stripers, we just write a dance fabricates.

Do you sometimes get some of the girls to sleep with you or do you sometimes want to sleep with them?

I don’t sleep with my girls, they are my girls, they work for me and I don’t have any reasons to sleep with them. They can sleep with who so ever they want to sleep with but not me their boss, I have my woman.

So do you have girls?

I have my wife. (Laughs)

And your wife knows this is what you do?

Of course.

And she supports you?

Yes, she is happy about it. And we are living well.

You know the first time I came here, I am like how can girls be this bold? I came here like 10 times and I did not get any lap dance like I am flabbergasted sometimes, how can these girls be this bold? Are you sure you do not give them anything to embolden them?

No, if they want to drink they are free to take maybe beer or anything they want to drink to clear the shyness from their eyes. Not all of them.

Do they take drugs?

No, we don’t allow them to take drugs. If they take drugs they get drugged, so we don’t allow it. We only allow them to beer or take one or two shots of spirit and is it and someof them don’t even drink at all.

I want to ask a funny question. If you were to have a girl and she says she want to strip dance would you allow her?

If I have a girl? As in how?

A girl child, a daughter.

Well, it depends, there is no girl that would tell her parent that she want to strip dance, no girl would do that. If my daughter wants to strip dance, for instance my daughter school in the north and she is doing something and I am not aware of it, I am not going to kill her for it, I don’t know about it. There is no woman that will tell her father and mother that she wants to strip dance, they are doing it on their own. Ours is to make sure that you are not a minor that you are matured, once you are matured and you want to do it at your own will, you are free.

If you find out, what would you do?

Well, it depends. I will not kill her. If I don’t like her to do it I will take her out of it and if she insist then so be it, I wouldn’t kill her, just like they do aboard. You can’t force your child to do anything that he or she doesn’t want to do and you allow them to do what they want to.