How Over 3,000 HIV/AIDS Patients In Army Barracks Onitsha Was Reduced To Over 200 HIV/AIDS Patients

        

Nigerian Army has a cantonment in Onitsha known as 302 Artillery Regiment . Before the Col Jibrin Fagge administration even before his predecessor then Col Gagariga Taritimiye now promoted Brigadier General , the Army barracks lacked everything including roads, proper housing and water supply even fencing to mention but a few.

There was a sex racket and impunity despite the Army discipline posture, reports odogwuemekaodogwu.com.

Then Governor Peter Obi initiated rehabilitation of Barracks hostels and houses , fencing of the expansive compound which helped reduce crime in Onitsha to rehabilitation of roads and Governor Obiano bought the idea and continued with that.

There is now great difference in he barracks than ever but there is still moribund cantonment water project, which Governor Obiano has said the state government, through the help of the World Bank, would resuscitate the project.

“We would make sure that the water reticulates beyond the cantonment for the benefit of communities close to the cantonment,” he assured.

It was Gagariga that in collaboration with the GOC Commanding 82 Division of Nigeria Army then Maj.-Gen. Ashimiyu Olaniyi, or is it  Maj. Gen AT Yusuf that instructed the demolition of the mammy market that encouraged the sex market with impunity after it was exposed by the media but is it still on in another discreet manner?  

Before now Lagos Park bypass near the Chisco Park is the unofficial headquarters of illicit sex in Onitsha as it was inhabited by women of easy virtue. In this area sex is done on wooden benches with impunity under make shift tents.

At these joints ladies wore a different cloth in the day and a seductive, wacky and all revealing attire for attraction. There is a racket from all the axis of Upper Iweka flyover -Lagos pack. A round of sex is as low as plate of food of N250.00 but if the tent should not be shared then be ready to pay between N750.00 and N1,000.00

And as sex thrives, so is the spread of Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) since the prostitutes engage in unprotected sex with clients provided the monetary exchange is good.

More worrisome is Onitsha army barracks before now because of its sprawling sex market, nicknamed Sokoto Road which had been refereed to as Sodom and Gomorrah of our time  because mother and daughter hawk their bodies for money at the same time without shame.

The area was ramshackle structures built of wooden or zinc batchers, and consists of prostitutes of all type and colour patronized by the residents of the Barracks and even outsiders after been exposed to porn, alcoholic and marijuana if not worst weeds.  

It was ‘tufiakwa’ for the Army Barracks as the prostitutes could collect N100.00 for a round of sex but many young girls between the ages of 15 and 25 for the sake of power and bragging that they know so and so engage in sex at the Barracks.  That was how HIV/AIDS was on the high scale and contributed to Anambra high ratio of carriers.

A source who identified himself as Kabiru Alonge said the destruction of the sex market assisted in reducing HIV/AIDS in the barracks as there could be over 6,000 carrier’s and victims before now in the barracks because of unprotected sex thriving there.

Now that the needful was done the rate has dropped as confirmed by the Head of Nursing in the cantonment Nneoma Oli while thanking Governor Obiano for his government’s support to the military hospital.

The cantonment has over 200 HIV/AIDS patients now but she did not go further to expose other rots in the system  or analyze the situation before and now.  

A clinical psychologist, Dr. Kene Onyekwelu, was quoted as saying ,“Seventy per cent of women who engage in prostitution do it out of greed. Others enter as a result of lack of good family upbringing and inadequate parental monitoring while some others suffer from some kind of psychological disorder,” he said.

A public affairs analyst, Martins Onuegbu, was also quoted as saying ,“Look at the society and you will see that we are actually the architects of our own problem. The police normally patrol the streets in the day and at night but instead of arresting those destroying the society, they look for their own pockets. Men are also to be blamed because the prostitutes would have closed shop a long time ago if men don’t patronize them. Most of us sleep with anything on skirt at the heat of passion without remembering the consequence.

“Also, most of the girls resort to selling their bodies because there are no jobs and the government is not even ready to employ in the nearest future. They will tell you that they cannot even pay minimum wage not to talk of employing more hands,” Onuegbu stated.

The Cornucopia Reporters