A lady reached out to me on Instagram some time ago that she needed me to help her incorporate a business and she also briefed me to help her take up legal action against some of her clients that she rendered services to and they ended up not paying her or paying less than what they bargained for.
I enquired to know the kind of business she is into and she told me that she is a pimp and that she runs a large pimping conglomerate in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria. Her plan at that moment is to go fully legal with the business by incorporating it with the corporate affairs commission so as to give her business some legal credence and certification.
For those who do not know what a pimp is, a pimp is a person who controls prostitutes and arranges clients for them, taking a percentage of their earnings in return, ie, pimping business is a business where a person who is called the pimp has several prostitutes in his or her employ, arranges the prostitutes to meet and have sex with clients, the pimp get paid by the clients out of which the prostitutes are paid from and the pimp keeps a percentage of the payment.
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This kind of business is illegal and criminal in Nigeria; prostitution is illegal and a crime in Nigeria, therefore, pimping or arranging prostitutes is also a crime and illegal but the lady was obviously ignorant of this fact.
I advised the lady that the pimping business cannot be incorporated because of its illegality and criminality. By the way, while incorporating a business, you are expected to fill in the objectives of the business or what the business will be into or the services the business will provide or be providing; that which the CAC goes through and ensures that the business you are into is legal according to the Nigerian laws and if it is found that there is any form of illegality, they will decline to approve the registration of the business. Illegal businesses cannot be incorporated or registered by the CAC.
As for her asking me to institute an action on her behalf because some of the clients she gave her prostitutes refused to pay or refused to pay the agreed sum. I enquired more about this and she told me that she is sometimes contacted to send her girls (the prostitutes) to new nightclubs for “club activation” or new nightclub opening or for her prostitutes to act as strippers in the nightclub and entertain guests. They will agree on a price which sometimes run into millions of naira to be paid to them but after the event, the club owners or the promoters will refuse to pay her their dues.
Unfortunately, as it is, she cannot go to court over this to recover her debt because the deal leading to the debt was an illegal transaction and you cannot use the court to enforce an illegal transaction or contract. The general principle is that the court will not enforce a contract, which is illegal or contrary to public policy.