Sextortion in Nigeria: How to Get Help and Fight Back

When a relationship ends, the last thing anyone expects is for an ex to weaponise intimate images. But for Efe, that nightmare became real. After a difficult breakup, her ex refused to let go. He waited outside her gym, called her mother, and sent endless voice notes. Then he began sending her explicit photos and videos she had shared with him months earlier. Every Snapchat notification from him felt more unsettling. When she confronted him, he claimed she had sent them to him first. Weeks later, the messages turned into threats: “If I was a bad person now, I would have sent these pictures to people from our church youth group.” What followed was months of abuse, blackmail, and gaslighting—a draining, systematic ordeal that still traumatises her.

Efe’s story is not isolated. According to the Nigerian Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT), 54,000 Nigerians have been caught in a surge of sextortion scams, with reported cases spiking 30% between October 2024 and March 2025. Sextortion can happen to anyone—your friend, cousin, brother, colleague, or niece. If you or someone you know is being sextorted, here is where to get help.

Immediate Steps: Don’t Pay, Don’t Panic-Delete, Don’t Ignore

Sextortion can be for money, favours, more pictures or videos, or simply abuse. If money is demanded, paying rarely makes it stop. The blackmailer will likely ask for more after the first payment, digging you deeper into a ditch. Instead, screenshot everything. If you’re tempted to wipe everything to make it go away, resist that urge. Document all of it—their messages, profile pictures and details, phone numbers, emails, payment details, everything.

StopNCII: Remove Intimate Images from the Internet

You can have your pictures removed from the internet. StopNCII.org is the single most useful tool in this regard, and many people don’t know it exists. To use the platform, you upload the on your own device and convert it into a digital fingerprint, known as a hash. This is not uploaded to StopNCII or anywhere on the web. The platform uses digital fingerprinting technology and shares this digital fingerprint (the hash) across social media platforms such as Meta/Instagram/Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Bumble, Pornhub, OnlyFans, Threads, and others. This automatically blocks the from ever being posted or reposted on these sites. You can do this before the images are shared, and it can even block images after they have been shared. The platform will continue to scrub the internet for these images and videos moving forward, and you can choose to withdraw your case at any time.

Report to Nigerian Law Enforcement

Your first choice here would be the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) is the designated party for this. The NPF-NCCC have an e-reporting portal for filing complaints without having to visit the station: nccc.npf.gov.ng/ereport. You can email them at nationalcybercrimecenter@nccc.npf.gov.ng, and call them via +2349168343711 and +2349168343710.

However, some discretion should be exercised. Research from Amnesty International has associated victim-blaming, dismissive treatment, financial extortion, gender stereotyping, and lack of empathy with the Nigerian police in cases like this.

You can also thread the path of NAPTIP (National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons), which now has a dedicated Cybersecurity Response Team handling sextortion and online exploitation specifically. You can reach them on these hotlines: 07030000203 or the shortcode 627.

If you have paid any money, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) can be contacted as well.

Social and Legal Support

If you want to get a sense of what is going on, how to navigate it, and what support is available, there are a group of organisations that pair legal support with trauma support. Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF), Mirable Centre, Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, Lagos State, and Cece Yara Foundation (for minors) are just some of the organisations you can get in contact with. They not only provide legal advice, emotional support, and trauma care; they can also help you with a better understanding of your own peculiar situation and the right steps to take.

Sextortion is usually intended to make you feel like you have no options. It leverages shame and thrives on silence. So the moment you act in the right way, you take power back from the blackmailer, and you just might be saving the next person as well. So act fast, document everything, and remind yourself that help is always available.