On the day I met 26-year-old Shola (not her real name), she had just arrived at a well-known hotel in Ogba, a suburb of Lagos, to engage in prostitution. She began her prostitution journey on Telegram in 2023. A friend introduced her to a prostitution group on the app, and by April 2025, Shola became a full-time prostitute. In Nigeria, prostitution is also known as 'hookup,' where sexual activity is exchanged for money.
The hotel where I met Shola allows prostitutes to operate freely in the corridors and in the club. Their business model is straightforward. Men spend money on prostitutes to buy drinks in the club and later book rooms at the hotel for sex. It's a win-win situation for them. The global sex industry is estimated to make $186 billion every year, with Nigeria accounting for about 6.45 percent of that revenue.
Shola seems popular at the hotel. Everyone calls her and waits to talk to her. Within minutes of entering the hotel, 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 the club's music blasts.
I sat not too far from Shola in the club. A friend introduced me to her earlier that night, and we exchanged phone numbers. We started chatting on WhatsApp about her experiences with prostitution on Telegram while she sat with her client. Sometimes, our conversation shifted to more personal topics.
Shola mainly gets her clients from a private Telegram prostitution group called "Obawole, Ogba, and Iju Ishaga," marked with rose emojis. Unlike other groups that use words like "hookup" to indicate they facilitate prostitution, this group does not have such signals.
The group's name reflects areas within the Ifako-Ijaiye and Ikeja local government areas of Lagos State. These areas are close to each other, and the group's purpose is to connect prostitutes with clients living along that route.
The group is private, so without inside information, you might never know it exists. Telegram allows users to create private groups with up to 200,000 members and share unlimited photos, videos, and files up to 2 GB each. The app, created by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, launched in August 2013. By 2025, it had over 1 billion monthly active users. Telegram's features, like end-to-end encryption and hidden phone numbers, help prostitution groups like Obawole Ogba and Iju Ishaga stay hidden.
Shola helped me join the Telegram prostitution group and showed me how to find clients. She took my phone and typed for me, saying, "I am available for any short rest and overnight with BJ (Blow job meaning oral sex)." She raised an eyebrow and asked if I knew how to do BJ, and I nodded. She sent the message from my account, assuring me I would soon get clients. She was right. Requests for sexual services quickly started coming into my Telegram.
Before we ended our chat, Shola warned me about an admin named Cattea, who extorts money from women. Another prostitute I met at the hotel, who also did not share her real name, told me about Cattea. Let's call her Blessing. She said Cattea blocked her for not paying "tithe." Blessing said she paid Cattea N2,000 to become a verified member of the group. She showed me her receipt on her phone.
She explained that it became a problem when Cattea kept asking her for money and threatened to mute her in the group. If he did that, she couldn't advertise her services to clients. She paid him N1,000 twice before deciding enough was enough. Cattea blocked her afterward, and her anger was clear as she recalled her experience.
Like Blessing, Angel, another member of the Obawole, Ogba, Iju Ishaga group, also faced extortion, but from other Telegram admins. Angel is part of other groups that connect women with clients in different parts of Lagos. This group focuses on high-end areas. Angel paid N10,000 to join the groups: @lekkibeach, @ibejuLekki, and @ajahconnect. However, she soon fell victim to extortion. Within a month, the admin muted her and demanded N70,000 to continue using the platform.
Besides being extorted by admins, Angel has had bad experiences with clients she meets in Telegram groups. Some clients have body-shamed her, left her stranded, and threatened her with violence. She told me about one time she took a Bolt ride costing N30,000 to meet a client, who never showed up. Another time, she asked a potential client for N250,000 for anal sex. The man insulted her and threatened violence if they met.
While women like Angel face challenges in the Telegram prostitution groups, the admins are making money from running these accounts. Apart from extorting prostitutes, admins charge membership fees and raise prices at will. Although Angel paid N10,000 to join @ajahconnect, when I tried to join, the admin asked me for N35,000. Ajah Connect has more than 16,000 members.
With the chance to earn money from managing Telegram prostitution groups, many other rings operate across Nigeria, including in universities. I counted 86 such groups.
Some groups moved from WhatsApp to Telegram after being banned on the former. One such group is Olosho Connect Naija, where men seek sex slaves and women sell sex videos. Some members also promote opportunities for porn stars and transgender activities.
The admin, Henry Otareh, said the group initially operated on WhatsApp but planned to become the top prostitution-connecting group on Telegram and in Nigeria after being taken down. "We want people from at least every major city in Nigeria: Abuja, Lagos, PH, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu, Umuahia, Uyo, Calabar," Henry said, asking members to share the link with, "even those in minor towns and villages."
Olosho Connect Naija has changed names several times but finally chose a name reflecting the admin's ambitions.
After settling on the name, the group 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 to be called prostitutes. I submitted my picture and age to June Din, the group's owner. Five minutes later, with June using Telegram's label feature, I became a "verified escort." This means men can trust that I am indeed a prostitute and seek 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 explained in a voice note, and tears welled in my eyes.
While the group offers no protection, it uses Telegram’s privacy features to secure itself. The group prevents screen-grabs, recordings, or copying information on a phone. It also uses AI tools like ChatKeeperbot to control spam and Safeguard for security. During chats with clients, if you try to take a screen grab, it alerts you! You can leave the group but cannot report it.
In Henry's attempt to justify Olosho Connect Naija's existence, he claimed in a voice note that "prostitution is the oldest profession in human history," adding that "the group is here to stay." Historical records show that toolmaking is actually the oldest profession, dating back over 2.6 million years. The idea of calling prostitution "the oldest profession" comes from Rudyard Kipling during discussions for its legalization in the 19th century.
Henry also claimed that women are more active in sex when men pay for it, saying relationships have many rules that cause anxiety for ladies. But public health expert and sex educator Elizabeth Adewale contradicted him, explaining that for most women, sex with partners does not 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 on his album. Some videos are labeled with a black-and-white ad: "I have girls available for hookup all over Nigeria." I investigated one video showing a young woman naked and spinning. The video turned out to be from a Nigerian porn site where leaked nudes are often posted. The name and link of the group are withheld to minimize harm. The lady’s video has the description: "Akwa Ibom Girl Nude Video Leaks."
A snippet of the same video was also shared on Facebook on June 3, 2024, by a user named Kopala Chimz, who used teary emojis to cover the girl’s private parts. I reported the video to Facebook, but they refused to take it down, only hiding it from minors and citing guideline violations.
Beyond using women’s nudity to promote prostitution, Henry also recruits women for sex both in Nigeria and abroad. On February 17, 2025, he wrote in the Olosho Connect Naija group, "If you are interested in travelling to Ghana to work, slide into my DMs ASAP!" Hours later, he posted again, "If you are available for a ‘short time’ in Calabar and you give head (oral sex), DM. Your services are urgently needed."
I contacted Henry about prostitution jobs in Ghana, and he promised to "get in touch."
Telegram’s privacy policy prohibits using groups for illegal activities. This includes child abuse and selling illegal goods and services. I reported the activities of Olosho Connect Naija to Telegram via its abuse email on January 18, asking if the group’s operations violate their rules and what measures they are taking.
Though the platform did not reply, they quickly took down the growing prostitution group by January 22. But it did not end there. A week later, Henry started another Telegram prostitution group with a similar name and invited people to join. Since I was already a verified member of the previous group, he invited me to join the new one too.
Women’s Rights Activist Oluwafunmbi Ogunsola advised that Telegram must not only take down the groups but also warn admins that repeated offenses will lead to permanent bans. "They need to monitor the groups to ensure admins don’t just open new ones," Oluwafunmbi said. "When they break the rules, they should just ban them from the platform."
In Nigeria, the penal code prohibits prostitution in the North. In the South, Sections 223, 224, and 225 of the Criminal Code make it illegal to facilitate or procure prostitutes. This includes providing facilities for prostitution or recruiting women and girls for such activities. Lawyer Christiana Longe explained that the Criminal Codes 222, 223, and 224 make activities of groups like Olosho Connect Naija illegal because they act as online brothels.
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), which Nigeria supports, also criminalize third parties profiting from a woman’s prostitution, including pimps and traffickers.
To aid in prosecuting Henry and June, I reported Olosho Connect Naija to Godwin Eyake, the Head of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) at the Cross River Command. I shared the group link with him via WhatsApp so he could see their activities. I asked what action would be taken.
Godwin indicated that their existence is not illegal. He said the agency can only act when there is proof of exploitation, such as if someone else benefits from the prostitution proceeds. He added that they can intervene if the recruiter engages in sextortion by blackmailing victims for nude images.
Lawyer Dogo Joy explained that the law, particularly Section 223 (2) and 225 (B), clearly states that anyone facilitating prostitution is illegal, regardless of whether they profit from it. "The law does not even state that he must make money; the mere act of keeping a brothel for prostitution should attract penalties," she said angrily. "Whether online or offline, it is an offense in Nigeria."
Joy noted that the legal consequences are outdated, as the law is from the 90s. Offenders face only a N100 fine or six months in prison, or both. She suggested Nigeria update its sexual exploitation laws to impose harsher penalties.
After Godwin's response, which promised no action, I reported the activities to NAPTIP’s headquarters via email. The agency, through its Director for Legal and Prosecution, Ijeoma Amugo, confirmed the group’s activities are illegal. They assured me that their cybercrime team would investigate.
Women’s rights advocate Prisca Iwendi suggested that NAPTIP establish a team to monitor and prosecute managers of online prostitution groups facilitating the procurement of women for sexual services. She also said hotels acting as brothels should be closely monitored and penalized.
Anna Fisher, co-founder of Nordic Model Now, an NGO working towards ending prostitution, urged Telegram to take stronger actions against prostitution advertising groups. "These sites have led to a huge increase in the size of the prostitution industry," Anna said. "The only way to reduce trafficking these sites promote is by shutting them down."
Meanwhile, on March 23, the new Olosho Connect Naija added an AI bot called Ban Protector to remove media reporters. Four days later, on March 27, Telegram suspended my account for "suspicion of spam," cutting off my access to the Telegram prostitution networks.
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