Many Nigerian youths especially young celebrities have developed a worrisome habit of recording romantic and pleasurable moments with lovers. Unfortunately, when the love affairs go sour, they found themselves being dragged through the mud as their estranged lovers would threaten them with exposing their nude videos while some daring ones actually made good on their threats.

This trend became easier following the advent of Web 2.0 which brought interactivity to the Internet, making it possible for users to create their own contents. Such contents include texts, photographs, audio and video files. Websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter which is now known as X, Snapchat and TikTok have allowed almost every Web user to be a content creator if they so desired.

While some people invest in creating contents that educate, inform or entertain the audience, the worrisome trend whereby photographs or videos of people engaged in sex go viral online has emerged. While most of the victims usually blame the incident on blackmailers, it is noteworthy that a large chunk of people who have been dragged in the mud through sex videos and pictures online are celebrities.

In 2021, popular Nigerian artiste, Tiwa Savage, during a radio interview in the United States, raised an alarm that some blackmailers wanted to release a sex tape that featured her with her partner. The video was later released and it attracted a backlash from her fans. She even lost some of her endorsement deals, with some people labelling her as a bad example. The renowned singer claimed that the video was mistakenly posted on Snapchat by her lover who immediately deleted it. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Likewise, few years earlier, Nollywood actress who was married to a Dutch man at that time, Anita Hogan, fell victim of leaked nude pictures. She had claimed that she saved those pictures on her laptop for her partner but forgot to delete them when she gave the laptop to a repairer.

Uche Iwuji, an award-winning Nollywood actress who came into limelight in the early 2000s, had her career and marriage of 15 months ruined when her nude photographs appeared online. The seasoned actress who had married oil magnate Juwon Lawal in 2012 had to relocate abroad to escape the humiliation that followed allegations of infidelity which she battled with.

Another example was Nollywood bigwig, Empress Njamah, who had her sex video released in November 2022 by her estranged lover, George Wade. Njamah who claimed that she was under duress when the video was recorded added that she was scammed, beaten and held hostage by Wade before her eventual escape. She even alleged that Wade was the man in the video but he hid his face.

Another Nollywood popular face, Moyo Lawal, in September this year had her own bitter share of leaked sex video scandal, though she claimed that the video was an old recording that she did with her ex-lover.

Another classic example was TikTok star Esther Raphael, also known as Buba Girl, whose boyfriend released a video where she was shown masturbating. Buba Girl, however, claimed that the said video was released after she refused to succumb to blackmail.

It would be recalled that back in 2016, 19-year-old Miss Anambra of that time, Chidinma Okeke, ran into trouble when a video went viral online showing her engaged in sexual acts with a girl. Miss Okeke who was about to complete her reign as beauty queen at that time had her crown withdrawn from her over the incident.

While identifying factors that could be responsible for lovers posting sexual videos online, Professor Adediran Ikuomola from the Department of Criminology and Security Studies, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, said that it is possible some of the so-called victims allow such videos to go viral as a way to seek attention and sympathy. To buttress this point, he said that a lot of such videos can be doctored.

While noting that we live in a society where sexual perverts are on rampage, Ikuomola said some content creators use sex videos to popularise their websites. The criminology scholar, who pointed out that victims of leaked sex videos who are mostly celebrities always want to blame others for their fate, equally noted that some of the victims caused it through carelessness.

His words: “Some of these celebrities already have the sex videos on their phones and they failed to secure those phones with passwords. Even when there is a password, some make the mistake of disclosing it to another person. The word ‘leak’ means that their devices were not well-protected and in some cases the videos are mistakenly sent to the wrong person.”

He advised people, especially celebrities, to be careful with their devices because the complexity of technology in this age makes some people give others access to their devices unknowingly.

He also said that celebrities should be mindful of where they go to catch fun because they do not know who is targeting them, adding that some of such videos are recorded with very small cameras that are difficult to detect.

Commenting on the trend, Dr Mrs. Kemi Adebola, a sociologist from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), said that people who leak sex videos online make money from the act, especially blackmailers.

She added that the so-called lovers who post their partners’ sex tapes never entered such relationships because of love but to exploit their partners, saying this is made possible because quite a number of celebrities who fall victim are careless.

Her words: “One of those celebrities that I listened to claimed that the guy came into her life during one of her low moments, a time when she was very vulnerable, but that is the common explanation that most of them give.”

Citing the high level of moral decadence in the society, she blamed the trend on the fact that people who are already old enough to marry prefer to keep lovers outside marriage, saying, “People don’t value sex any longer. The sanctity behind it is being treated with contempt because of moral decadence in the society. Some of the so-called victims were actually aware of the recordings but did not consider the fact that their relationship with such lovers could turn sour.”

She, therefore, opined that the only way out is for people to be more careful with whom they fall in love with.

In the words of Samson Adebowale, an ICT expert, social media is a global village and a lot of sex videos and images are there already which can easily go viral. He said that though YouTube had blocked some in the past, consistent improvement in technology will solve the problem better.

Adebowale who said that nobody has control over how far any information that has been posted online can go added that victims could sue the perpetrators.

Adams Terrence, another ICT consultant and teacher, confirmed that it is actually possible to post a content online without the knowledge and consent of the affected person, describing it as one of the extremisms of technology.

Explaining further, he said that while technology helps mankind to solve a problem, people with ulterior motive can use it to create another problem. His words: “That’s how the world has always been. The codes and programing conventions in media today were meant to fight wars but the world saw them fit to solve societal issues. Also, social media were meant for quicker and easier communication but they are now being used to defame personalities.”

While pointing out the need for everyone to be careful with social media, including people who have fallen and are still falling victim of leaked sex videos, Terrence observed that as camera technology is growing into nano chips, a very dangerous development, privacy is fast taking another dimension.

“There are phone chargers that are embedded with cameras and there are cameras so small that they can be worn on a shirt as buttons. Some cameras are as small as a thumbtack which can be placed and hidden anywhere,” he disclosed.