How Telegram's Failures and Misinformation Fuel Prostitution in Nigeria

On the day I met 26-year-old Shola (not her real name), she had just arrived at a popular hotel in Ogba, a suburb of Lagos, to engage in prostitution. Shola's journey into prostitution started on Telegram in 2023. A friend introduced her to a prostitution group on the app, and by April 2025, she became a full-time prostitute. In Nigeria, prostitution is also known as ‘hookup,’ which means trading sexual activity for money.

The hotel where I met Shola allows prostitutes to work freely in the corridors and the club. Their business plan is straightforward. Men spend money on drinks for the prostitutes in the club and later book rooms for sex. This way, they make money on both ends. The global sex industry is worth about $186 billion a year, with Nigeria contributing around 6.45 percent of that.

Shola seems to be popular at the hotel. People call for her, eager to talk. Just minutes after entering, Shola is already with a male client. She sits next to him in the club, silent, with bottles of beer in front of them, a cigarette in each hand, while loud music plays in the background.

I sat a bit away from Shola in the club. A friend had introduced us earlier that night, and we exchanged numbers. We began chatting on WhatsApp about her experiences in prostitution on Telegram while she was with her client. Occasionally, our conversation shifted to physical topics.

Shola mainly finds clients through a private Telegram prostitution group called “Obawole, Ogba, and Iju Ishaga,” marked with rose emojis. Unlike other prostitution groups that use words like “hookup” to signal their purpose, this group does not.

The group is named after areas in Ifako-Ijaiye and Ikeja local government areas of Lagos State. These areas are close to each other. The group's purpose is to connect prostitutes with clients living in the same neighborhoods.

The group is private, so without insider info, you might never know it exists. Telegram allows for private groups with up to 200,000 members, letting users share unlimited photos, videos, and files up to 2 GB. The app was created by siblings Pavel and Nikolai Durov and launched in August 2013. By 2025, it had over 1 billion monthly active users. Features like end-to-end encryption and hidden phone numbers help groups like Obawole Ogba and Iju Ishaga remain unnoticed.

Shola helped me join the Telegram prostitution group and showed me how to find clients like she does. She took my phone and typed a message on my behalf:

“I am available for any short rest and overnight with BJ (Blow job meaning oral sex),” Shola said, raising an eyebrow, asking if I knew how to do BJ, and I nodded. She sent the message, assuring me that clients would soon come. She was right. Requests for sexual services quickly flooded my Telegram account, with some clients calling me impatiently.

Before we finished our conversation, Shola warned me to watch out for an admin who extorts money from women. His name is Cattea.

Another prostitute I met at the hotel told me about Cattea. She also shared only her first name and was in the prostitution group until Cattea blocked her for not paying “tithe.” Let’s call her Blessing. Blessing shared how she paid Cattea N2,000 to become a verified prostitute in the group. She showed me the receipt on her phone, eager to prove she was telling the truth.

She explained that the issue arose when Cattea kept asking her for money and threatened to mute her in the group. If he did that, she wouldn’t be able to advertise for clients. She paid him N1,000 two times before deciding she had enough. After that, Cattea blocked her from the group, her voice rising with anger as she told her story.

Like Blessing, Angel, another member of the Obawole, Ogba, Iju Ishaga group, also faced extortion, but from other Telegram admins, not Cattea. Angel is part of other groups that connect women to clients for prostitution in different parts of Lagos. The group serves highbrow areas. Angel paid N10,000 to join the groups: @lekkibeach, @ibejuLekki, and @ajahconnect; however, she soon became a victim of extortion. Within a month, the group admin muted her and demanded N70,000 to keep her access.

Angel told me that the admins running Telegram prostitution groups in upscale areas likely work as a couple and believe they are untouchable.

“It’s messing with my head lately,” she said.

Besides being extorted by admins, Angel has had bad experiences with clients she meets through Telegram groups. She has faced body shaming, been left stranded, and threatened with violence. She told me about a time she took a Bolt ride costing N30,000 to meet a client who never showed up. Another time, she asked a potential client to pay N250,000 for anal sex. The man called her a bag of bones and threatened to hit her if they met.

While women like Angel face difficulties in Telegram prostitution groups, the admins are profiting from their accounts. They extort prostitutes for money and charge membership fees, raising prices when they want. Angel paid N10,000 to join @ajahconnect, but when I tried to join, the admin asked me for N35,000. Meanwhile, Ajah Connect has over 16,000 members.

Many other prostitution rings exist to facilitate operations across Nigeria, including in universities. I found 86 such groups.

Some groups moved from WhatsApp to Telegram after being banned from the former. One such group is Olosho Connect Naija, where men ask to be sex slaves, and women sell sex videos. Some also advertise opportunities for porn stars and transgender activities.

The admin manager, Henry Otareh, revealed that the group started on WhatsApp but, after being taken down, now aims to be the top prostitution-connecting group on Telegram and across Nigeria.

“We want people from every major city in Nigeria: Abuja, Lagos, PH, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu, Umuahia, Uyo, Calabar,” Henry said, urging members to share the group link with “even those in small towns and villages.”

Olosho Connect Naija has changed names several times before settling on one that reflects the admin’s ambition.

After choosing its name, the admin requires male members to pay N5,000 to his Opay account: 9159563993, while payments for prostitutes range from N3,000 to N20,000.

Women must be verified as prostitutes. To become verified, I sent my photo and age to June Din, the group’s owner. Five minutes later, June tagged me as a “verified escort.” This means men can trust that I am indeed a prostitute and use my services.

I asked June what protection exists for verified prostitutes, and she told me none.

“This is a hookup; nobody is guaranteeing you safety. You are meeting someone for the first time that you don’t know, so that’s the risk,” she told me in a voice note, and tears filled my eyes.

Though the group offers no protection for its members, it uses Telegram’s privacy features to hide its activities. The group prevents users from screen-grabbing, recording, or copying information on a mobile phone. It also uses AI tools like ChatKeeperbot, which helps control spam, and Safeguard, a security tool. If you try to take a screenshot during a private chat, it will announce it. You cannot report the group, only leave.

In Henry’s attempt to defend Olosho Connect Naija, he claimed in a voice note that “prostitution is the oldest profession in human history,” stressing that “the group is here to stay.”

Historical records show that, contrary to Henry’s claim, toolmaking is the world’s oldest profession, going back over 2.6 million years. The idea of prostitution being “the world’s oldest profession” comes from Rudyard Kipling during the 19th century in 1888, when people argued for its legalisation.

Henry also claimed that women are likely to be more active in sex when men pay for it, as relationships come with rules that cause anxiety for ladies. But public health expert and sex educator Elizabeth Adewale said this claim is false, stating, “for most women, sex with their partners doesn’t come with anxiety.”

Beyond Henry’s misleading claims, he also uses women’s nudity to promote sexual exploitation, using Telegram’s Story Albums feature. Henry has nine videos of nude women in his album. Some videos carry a black-and-white ad label: “I have girls available for hookup all over Nigeria.” I investigated one video showing a young woman, naked and spinning around. The only thing not bare is a pepper-shaped Snapchat filter on her face.

I took a screenshot of the video’s keyframes and ran it through Google Reverse Image Search. The video was traced back to a Nigerian porn site, where leaked nudes often appear. The group name and link are withheld to minimize harm. The video is described as: “Akwa Ibom Girl Nude Video Leaks.”

A snippet of the same video was also posted on Facebook on 3 June 2024. A user, Kopala Chimz, covered the girl’s private parts with teary emojis. I reported the video to Facebook, but they refused to take it down, only hiding it from minors.

In addition to using women’s nudity for advertising, Henry also recruits women for sex inside and outside Nigeria. On 17 February 2025, he posted in the Olosho Connect Naija group:

“If you are interested in travelling to Ghana to work, slide into my DMs ASAP!” A few hours later, he added, “If you are available for a ‘short time’ in Calabar and you give head (oral sex), DM. Your services are urgently needed.”

I reached out to Henry about prostitution jobs in Ghana, and he promised to “get in touch.”

Telegram’s privacy policy prohibits users from engaging in activities deemed illegal in most countries, including child abuse and selling illegal goods and services.

I reported Olosho Connect Naija’s activities to Telegram via its abuse email on 18 January, asking if the group’s operations violate their rules and what measures they are taking to address it.

Though the platform did not reply, they took down the rising prostitution group by 22 January.

But it was not over. A week later, Henry opened another Telegram prostitution group with a similar name and invited people to join. Since I was already a verified prostitute in the previous group, he invited me to join again.

Women’s Rights Activist Oluwafunmbi Ogunsola suggested that beyond taking down groups, Telegram should warn group administrators that repeated offenses will lead to permanent bans.

“They need to regularly monitor the groups to ensure that admins don’t just open new ones,” Oluwafunmbi said. “When they break the rules, they should just ban them from the platform.”

Nigeria’s penal code bans prostitution in the North. In the South, Sections 223, 224, and 225 of the Criminal Code prohibit procuring or facilitating prostitution. This includes providing facilities or arranging for people to patronise prostitutes. Christiana Longe, a lawyer and project manager at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, stated that the Criminal Codes 222, 223, and 224 clearly make the activities of groups like Olosho Connect Naija illegal “because they are obviously online brothels.”

Other local laws, like Nigeria’s Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, and international policies like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), also criminalise third parties benefiting from a woman’s prostitution, such as pimps and traffickers.

To help prosecute Henry and June, I reported Olosho Connect Naija’s activities to Godwin Eyake, the Head of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) at the Cross River Command. I also shared the group link with him via WhatsApp to show him the group’s activities. I asked what action would be taken.

The NAPTIP Cross River head suggested their existence is not illegal. He stated that the agency can only “step in” when there’s evidence of exploitation, such as “if the proceeds of prostitution are being seized or enjoyed by someone else.” He added that the agency can also act if “the recruiter engages in sextortion or blackmail victims.”

Reacting to this, lawyer Dogo Joy explained that the law, particularly Section 223 (2) and 225 (B), is clear that anyone facilitating prostitution is illegal, regardless of whether they collect money.

“The law does not even state that he must make money; just keeping a brothel for prostitution should attract punishment,” she said angrily. “Whether online or offline, it is an offence in Nigeria.”

Joy noted that legal punishment is outdated as the law was made in the 90s. Offenders face “a fine of one hundred naira or six months in prison or both.” She recommends updating Nigeria’s sexual exploitation laws for harsher penalties.

After Godwin’s response, which offered no action, I reported the groups to NAPTIP’s headquarters via email. The agency, through its Director for Legal and Prosecution, Ijeoma Amugo, confirmed that the group’s activities are illegal. In their reply, the agency promised that its cybercrime team would investigate.

Prisca Iwendi, a women’s rights advocate, suggested that NAPTIP should create a body to monitor and prosecute managers of online prostitution groups. She added that hotels acting as brothels should be closely watched and punished.

Anna Fisher, co-founder of Nordic Model Now, an NGO working to end prostitution, advised Telegram to take stronger actions against prostitution advertising groups.

“These sites have led to a huge rise in the prostitution industry,” Anna said. “We believe that shutting them down is the only way to reduce trafficking.”

Meanwhile, on 23 March, the new Olosho Connect Naija added an AI bot called Ban Protector to detect and remove media reporters. Four days later, on 27 March, Telegram suspended my account “on suspicion of spam,” and my access to the Telegram prostitution networks was cut off.