Prostitution, also called 'hookup' in Nigeria, is the exchange of sexual activity for money.

Tuco's Palace Hotel allows prostitutes to operate freely in the corridors of their hotel's ground floor as well as in the club. Their business strategy was simple. The men would spend money on the prostitutes to buy drinks in the club, and to lodge at the hotel later on for coitus. A double money-win. The global sex industry is estimated to generate $186 billion annually, with Nigeria accounting for about 6.45% of the revenue.

Bella appears to be popular at Tuco's Palace Hotel. Everyone calls her, waiting to speak to her. Within minutes of entering the hotel, Bella is already with a male client. She sat next to him in the hotel's club in silence, with bottles of beer in front of them, a cigarette in each hand, and the club's music blasting over their heads.

I sat at a distance, not too far away from Bella, at the club. A friend had introduced me to her earlier in the night, and we had exchanged phone numbers. We began to chat on WhatsApp about her experience with prostitution on Telegram while she was sitting next to her client. Occasionally, the conversation switches to a physical one.

Bella mainly gets her clients from a private Telegram prostitution group called "Obawole, Ogba, and Iju Ishaga," punctuated with rose emojis. Unlike other prostitution groups that use keywords such as "hookup" to indicate they facilitate prostitution, the group carries no such signal.

The group's name is that of an area within the Ifako-Ijaiye and Ikeja local government areas of Lagos State. The areas are not far apart, and the purpose of the group on Telegram is to connect prostitutes with clients living along the same axis.

The group is also private, so without insider information, you might never know it exists. Telegram allows people to create private groups with up to 200,000 members and let users share an unlimited number of photos, videos, and files up to 2 GB each. The cloud-based app was created by siblings Pavel and Nikolai Durov and launched in August 2013. As of 2025, it already has over 1 billion monthly active users. The platform offers features such as end-to-end encryption, hidden phone numbers, and bot integration. These privacy-enhanced features made it possible for prostitution groups like Obawole Ogba and Iju Ishaga to hide in plain sight.

Bella helped me join the Telegram prostitution group and showed me how to get clients as she does, collecting my phone, and muttering the words she was typing on my behalf in the group.

“I am available for any short rest and overnight with BJ (Blow job meaning oral sex),” Bella asked me with a raised eyebrow, if I know how to do BJ, and I murmured in agreement. She sent the message on my behalf, assuring me I would soon begin to get clients. She was right. Sexual services requests soon began to pour in on my Telegram account, with some clients impatiently calling me.

Before ending our conversation, Bella warned me to be careful of an admin who extorts money from women. His name is Cattea.

With avenues for cash available from opening and managing Telegram prostitution groups, several other prostitution rings exist to facilitate operations across Nigeria, including universities. I counted 86 of such groups.

Some of the groups also migrated from WhatsApp to Telegram after being banned on the twin-like app. One such group is Olosho Connect Naija, where men beg to be sex slaves, and women advertise sex videos for cash. Some members also advertise porn stars' opportunities and transgender sexual activities.

A collage of sexual adverts in Olosho Connect with phone numbers blurred — Photo Source: DUBAWA

The admin manager, Henry Okimonye Otareh, reveals that the group initially operated on WhatsApp but, after being taken down, now plans to become the number one prostitution-connecting group on Telegram and across Nigeria.

Olosho Connect Naija has undergone several name changes before settling on the one that reflects the admin’s ambition.

But after deciding on its name, the group admin requires male members to pay N5,000 to his Opay account: 9159563993 while payments for prostitutes are to range from N3,000 to N20,000.

For women, they must be verified as prostitutes. To become verified, I shared my view-once picture and my age with June Din, the group's owner. Five minutes later, with June utilising Telegram's label feature, I was tagged a "verified escort." This means that men can now trust that I am indeed a prostitute and patronise my sexual services.

A snapshot of my infiltration of the group and gaining the verified escort label — Photo source: DUBAWA

I asked June what protection exists for women who are 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 rather frankly, and tears involuntarily pooled in my eyes.

While the group offers no protection for its members, it utilises Telegram's privacy features extensively to protect itself. The group makes it impossible for you to screen-grab, record, or copy information on a mobile phone. It also integrates Artificial Intelligence tools: ChatKeeperbot, which helps control spam messages, and Safeguard, an extensive security tool. During a private chat with a customer, if you attempt to take a screengrab, it announces it. Above all, there is no option for you to report the group. You can leave, but you can't report.

In Henry’s attempt to justify the existence of Olosho Connect Naija, he claimed in a voice note carrying the wave of his calm voice that “prostitution is the oldest profession in human history,” emphasising that “the group is here to stay.”

Historical records show that, contrary to Henry's claim, toolmaking is the world's oldest profession, dating back over 2.6 million years. The idea of prostitution being referred to as "the world's oldest profession" emanates from Rudyard Kipling, and that was during the 19th century in 1888, when people were arguing 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 several rules, which gives ladies anxiety. However, public health expert and sex educator Elizabeth Adewale shared that the claim is false, "as for most women, sex with their partners doesn't come with anxiety."

Beyond Henry's misleading claims, he also uses women's nudity to hawk sexual exploitation, utilising Telegram's Story Albums feature. Henry has nine prominent videos of nude women displayed on his album. Some of the videos carry a black-and-white advert label: "I have girls available for hookup all over Nigeria." I decided to investigate the origin of one showing someone who appears to be a teenager naked and doing a 360-degree spin of her body. The only thing not bare is the pepper-shaped Snapchat filter littered on her face.

I took a screenshot of the video's keyframes and ran it through a Google Reverse Image Search. The video turned out to have originated from a Nigerian pornsite, where women's and girls' leaked nudes are often posted. The name and link of the group have been withheld to minimise harm. However, the lady's video carries the description: "Akwa Ibom Girl Nude Video Leaks."

A snippet of the same video has also been posted on Facebook on June 3, 2024, by a Facebook user. The user, Kopala chimz page, used teary emojis to cover the girl's private parts. I reported the video to Facebook, but they refused to take it down. They only hid it from minors, stating the video goes against their guideline "for what minors can see."

A screenshot of Facebook action after the reported post — Photo credit: DUBAWA

Beyond using women's nudity to advertise prostitution, Henry also procures women for sex in and out of the country. One of his messages on the Olosho Connect Naija group at the early hours of Feb. 17, 2025, reads: "If you are interested in travelling to Ghana to work, slide into my DMs ASAP!" A few hours later, Henry again posted, "If you are available for a 'short time' in Calabar and you give head (oral sex), DM. Your services are urgently needed."

Telegram, in its privacy policy, prohibits users from using groups to "engage in activities that are recognised as illegal in the majority of countries. This includes child abuse, selling or offering illegal goods and services."

So, I reported the activities of Olosho Connect Naija to Telegram via its abuse email on Jan. 18, 2026, asking whether the group's operations violate Telegram's rules and, if so, what measures they are taking to address the presence of such groups. Although the platform did not respond, they promptly took down the rising prostitution group by Jan. 22, 2026.

Telegram detailing why the group was taken down — Photo credit: DUBAWA

But it wasn't over yet. A week later, Henry opened another Telegram prostitution group with a similar name and shared it for people to join. With me already being a verified prostitute in the previous group, he invited me to join, too.

Women's Rights Activist Oluwafunmbi Ogunsola advised that, beyond Telegram taking down the groups, the platform must also issue a warning to the group administrators that repeated offences will lead to permanent bans from using their platforms.

Nigeria's penal code prohibits prostitution in the North. In the Southern parts of the country, Sections 223, 224, and 225 of the Criminal Code prohibit the facilitation or procurement of prostitutes in the area. This includes providing facilities or arranging for people to patronise prostitutes or recruiting women and girls to engage in prostitution. Christiana Longe, a legal practitioner and project manager at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, explained that the Criminal Codes 222, 223, and 224 make the activities of groups like Olosho Connect Naija illegal "because they are obviously online brothels."

Other local laws, such as 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 is a party to, also criminalise third parties benefitting from a woman's prostitution, including pimps, brothel keepers, and traffickers.

To facilitate Henry's and June's prosecution, I reported the activities of 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 also shared the link to the group they manage with the law enforcement officer via WhatsApp so he can witness the group’s activities. I then asked what action would be taken.

However, the NAPTIP Cross River head alluded to the fact that their existence is not illegal. He stated that the agency can only "step in" when there is evidence of exploitation, such as "if the proceeds of prostitution are being seized, taken, or enjoyed by a different person who laboured for it." He added that the agency can also intervene if “the recruiter decides to engage in activities of sextortion by trying to blackmail victims to share their nude images or videos.”

Reacting to this, lawyer Dogo Joy Njeb explained that the law, particularly Section 223 (2) and 225 (B), is very clear on anyone facilitating prostitution being illegal, whether or not they collect proceeds from the prostitutes.

Joy, however, noted that the legal punishment is outdated because the law was enacted in the 90s. Offenders are to pay only "a fine of one hundred naira or imprisonment for six months or both." She recommends that Nigeria update its sexual exploitation laws to include harsher punishments.

After Godwin’s response, which promises no action, I reported the groups' activities to NAPTIP’s headquarters via its official email. The agency, through its Director for Legal and Prosecution, Ijeoma Mary Amugo, Esq, confirmed that the group's activities are illegal. In its lettered response, the agency promised that thier cybercrime team will conduct an investigation.

Prisca Iwendi, a women's rights advocate, recommends that NAPTIP designate a body to monitor and prosecute managers of online prostitution groups that facilitate the procurement of women for sexual services. She added that hotels that function as brothels should also be closely monitored and sanctioned.

Anna Fisher, the co-founder of Nordic Model Now, an international non-governmental organisation working towards the abolition of prostitution, also advised Telegram to take a more proactive approach towards eliminating prostitution advertising groups.

Meanwhile, on March 23, the new Olosho Connect Naija integrated an artificial intelligence bot called Ban Protector into the group to detect and remove media reporters. Four days later, on March 27, Telegram suspended my account “on suspicion of spam,” and my window into the Telegram prostitution networks was slammed shut.