“We’ve Sold Our Souls to the Devil” I: Uncovering the Dark Truths About Nigerian Adult Film Business
Warning: This is an adult-related story. Reader discretion is advised.
“I was only 22 years old when I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
This painful admission was made by famous former Nigerian pornstar, Ededey Delphina Joy, who used to go by the sobriquet Savage TrapQueen.
Source: UGC
In her active years (2019 being the last), Joy was a victim of exploitation and physical assault. She had been fascinated by the limelight and passionate about building a career in modelling. However, a ‘reality television show’ slot pitched to her turned into a two-year nightmare.
“I didn’t plan to be a pornstar,” says Joy, who now prefers to be addressed as JoyDahQueen. “A friend actually told me about the job. She told me it was a reality TV show. But on getting there, I realised it was porn. I could have resisted them, but I was foolish.”
Joy is not alone: some of the industry’s biggest resources are naive, hypersexual early twenty-somethings looking to make a quick buck. For teens tricked into hardcore recordings, they do not exactly know what they are signing up for.
In January 2021, operatives of the Nigeria Police Interpol’s National Central Bureau (NCB) Abuja arrested two Kano-based suspects who are members of a trans-border/international child porn syndicate. The suspects, Mohammad Umar and Ibrahim Aminu, often take undue advantage of underage girls and disseminate video recordings of the illicit sexual act on social media.
Source: Original
Yekini Wunmi, the Lagos-based adult content creator popularly known as Mis Nympho, got into porn filming through unsolicited recruitment for a shoot. 18 and inexperienced, she started as a nude model, uploading her pictures for X and Instagram users to view.
Based on her involvement in nudity, a DM from a local adult entertainment production led her to Osun, a state she was not at all conversant with.
“It (porn) was something I never thought I would do,” admits ‘Wunmi Savage’. "It was so random and impulsive. I posted a picture on Twitter, it went viral at the time, negatively viral, and then this production (I am not going to mention their name) reached out to me and told me something about shooting porn.”
Wunmi, now 24, accused the unnamed ‘company’ of breach of agreement, saying “they paid me, but they did not pay me the amount we agreed on.”
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“I was even tiny; really young. It was now a situation where we could either do it willingly or do it forcefully. They did not say it directly, but if you read the room, that was like the situation.”
For context, this could be deemed sex trafficking, a situation in which a commercial sex act is induced by force or coercion. It is a criminal offence in Nigeria.
Source: Facebook
In the twilight of her porn acting career in December 2018, Joy, the ex-porn actress, twice experienced violence, allegedly committed by her former boss, Tobiloba Jolaoso. Jolaoso, commonly called King Tblak HOC, is one of the earliest performers in the African industry.
“I was cheated and assaulted as a porn actress. I was disrespected, and I was not even paid completely. I don’t think anyone should go into it. I decided to quit when I took a look at my life and cautioned myself. I didn’t know what I was doing,” a repentant Joy concedes.
The matter was reported to security operatives, although Jolaoso never publicly responded to the allegation.
Joy still holds grudges against the Nigerian adult entertainment industry; she would have gladly made more revelations when approached twice in three years. But on Saturday, October 11, 2025, she tells me that she is “on a spiritual journey to enhance my spiritual path.”
Source: Twitter
Nigeria’s unregulated porn industry
In Nigeria, the perception of pornography is heavily influenced by cultural and religious norms, which often view such materials as morally corrosive.
Making porn is frowned upon in Nigeria, according to an Abuja-based lawyer, Hammad Abdulrasheed.
Source: Original
He elucidates: “This is based on provisions of the law. The issue of adult pornography is addressed under Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act. It mentions ‘any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matters by means of the computer system or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic, or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character, or causes any message or matter to be so sent’ as culpable.”
Upon conviction, a person is liable to a fine of approximately N7 million or a term of imprisonment for three years. Abdulrasheed notes that the criminal code also addresses pornography.
“According to Section 233C, it talks about the test of obscenity. However, the main provision is Section 233D, which prohibits the publication of obscene matter, in which pornography is part of it.”
In June 2024, the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) warned filmmakers against producing and distributing pornography and other illegal content. The agency stated that it is collaborating with relevant security agencies to track down the filmmakers and production companies involved.
Regardless, promoters home and abroad venture into this underground enterprise, and certain x-rated sites rank among the most visited by people in the country.
Source: Original
Drawing data from Semrush, a leading SEO platform, XVideos, a website that hosts pornographic content, was among the top 5 most visited websites in Nigeria in September 2025, with 36.72 million visits. Another free pornographic video viewing website, XNXX, made the top 10, recording 16.11 million visits. No Nigerian online newspaper comes close.
Source: Original
Children’s easy access to x-rated content online
More than half of 12-13-year-old boys and a third of girls the same age visit porn sites every month.
My investigation found that XVideos particularly lacks robust measures to safeguard children in Nigeria and their rights. In the United Kingdom, users cannot access pornographic materials without presenting their photo ID or running credit card checks. That is not the case in Nigeria.
As one of the most visited porn sites worldwide, XVideos attracts billions of views every year. Yet its popularity comes with hidden risks, ranging from malware embedded in ads to data tracking and potential legal issues.
Source: Original
Source: Original
For parents, the risks go further. Children and teens are prone to seeing explicit content on XVideos with just a few clicks, which may impact their mental health, shape unrealistic views of intimacy, and expose them to online predators.
Dr Hassana Shuaibu, senior programme officer at ACE Charity, Abuja, describes the situation as “extremely alarming.”
“The lack of age verification on adult sites in Nigeria exposes children to harmful content that not only severely corrupts their minds but is a precursor to porn addiction, which has severe complications,” she tells me. “It is a gross violation of their right to be protected from pornographic material as enshrined in the Child Rights Act.”
Source: Facebook
Porn not as rewarding as you think
Mia Khalifa, the Lebanese-American retired pornography performer, exposed how little the money she made from porn is compared to her fame.
Khalifa said she received about $12,000 for a dozen shoots over three months before she left the industry in early 2015, and never a “penny again.” On Pornhub alone, she accrued 784 million views, but she does not get any residuals.
It was the same thoughts echoed by Wunmi, the Nigerian adult content creator, who explained that she has deprioritised XVideos and now focuses on OnlyFans and Fansly, where she has control over her earnings.
“XVideos didn’t pay me much. For someone who is doing porn, they expected me to do so much work for so little amount of money.”
Despite being Nigeria’s biggest players, the organogram of Freethinkers Adult Film Production and Wild Lagos Productions is virtually invisible to the public. The only visible people are the active actors and actresses who ‘have sold their souls to the devil’ - as relayed by Mareme Edet, known professionally as Uglygalz.
Source: Facebook
Uglygalz stated:
“I have had so many friends that stopped and started, including me. I stopped and started so many times.
"When I told them I am a good girl, I am from a Christian home; I am a nice girl, I want to do porn in a way that if I should get someone that wants to get married to me tomorrow, I’d be able to back out, and then they are like ‘Oh, you are stupid, you are useless’, especially ‘Maami Igbagbo’ (Elizabeth Ajibola), ‘we have sold our souls to the devil’. Even my then-boyfriend, Krissyjoh (real name Chris John), he keeps repeating it that anybody doing porn has sold their soul to the devil.”
This is the first of a two-part series.
Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.
Source: Legit.ng
