By Egobi Ofuogu

In early June, many Nigerians watched in disbelief as viral videos showed people pleading for money during a TikTok Live session allegedly hosted by suspected bandits.

The incident reignited concerns over the growing culture of soliciting virtual gifts and cash on social media, raising difficult questions about the boundaries between digital entrepreneurship and online begging.

As TikTok Live becomes a popular source of income for young Nigerians, opinions remain divided over whether the platform represents a legitimate avenue for creators to monetise their talents or a troubling trend that encourages dependence on virtual donations.

The debate also reflects broader concerns about youth unemployment, Nigeria’s evolving digital economy and the responsible use of social media.

Indeed, social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate, interact and create economic opportunities, with young Nigerians exploring digital spaces for income generation.

Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, X and TikTok have evolved beyond social networking to influence careers, businesses, community mobilisation and civic participation.

Among them, TikTok has emerged as one of the most popular platforms, enabling content creators to earn income through brand partnerships, advertising and virtual gifts from followers.

However, the growing popularity of TikTok Live, where viewers send gifts that can be converted into cash, has fuelled debate over whether the practice represents digital entrepreneurship or a new form of online begging.

According to DataReportal, Nigeria had an estimated 47.8 million social media users as of October 2025, representing about 20 per cent of the population.

Similarly, Intelpoint estimates TikTok’s Nigerian user base at about 37.4 million, underscoring the platform’s growing influence among young people.

For many, TikTok Live has become more than entertainment; it offers opportunities to build audiences, showcase creativity and generate income.

Even so, critics argue that some users have shifted from creating valuable content to merely soliciting gifts without offering meaningful engagement.

Sharing his perspective, Mr Steve Benjamin, a youth activist, said TikTok Live should not automatically be labelled as e-begging.

According to him, what matters is the intention behind using the platform.

“I did not go live because I was looking for money. As a matter of fact, I did not receive gifts from anybody and I did not ask for any,” he said.

Benjamin, however, expressed concern about creators who resort to degrading or exploitative content, especially involving children, simply to attract gifts and monetary rewards.

He urged content creators to focus on meaningful content while using digital platforms responsibly.

Furthermore, he advised youths who earn income from TikTok and similar platforms to diversify their revenue streams, noting that changes in algorithms, platform policies and audience preferences could affect earnings.

He encouraged creators to invest proceeds from social media in businesses, education and other sustainable ventures.

Offering a different perspective, entrepreneur Mr Jesse Ayo argued that virtual gifts should be seen as support for creators rather than acts of charity.

According to Ayo, quality content requires time, creativity and commitment, and audiences who appreciate such efforts should be free to support creators financially.

“When I see people put out content, I am pleased and want to support them so that they will be encouraged to do better,” he said.

He described content creation as legitimate work, saying creators devote considerable time and energy to producing engaging content.

“TikTok is just like a job now because people are putting in their time and energy. They spend sleepless nights creating content and it can be discouraging when the views are low or people do not appreciate their efforts,” he added.

Nevertheless, Ayo advised users to exercise restraint when spending money on virtual gifts.

Beyond individual opinions, research has also drawn attention to the growing phenomenon of online begging on social media.

A 2023 study titled Analysis of Online Begging Phenomena in TikTok identified online begging as an emerging practice driven by advances in digital technology and changing social behaviour.

Similarly, a 2025 study published in the Asian Journal of Humanities linked the trend to poverty, rapid technological development and the growing desire for online visibility.

Taken together, the studies suggest that while TikTok Live creates economic opportunities, it also raises ethical concerns over emotional manipulation, exploitation and controversial tactics used to attract financial rewards.

Meanwhile, governments and regulators across the world continue to focus on issues such as data privacy, child protection, misinformation and online safety.

In Nigeria, agencies including the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) have consistently advocated responsible use of digital platforms.

The Director-General of NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has repeatedly urged Nigerians, especially young people, to use digital technologies productively.

According to him, excessive consumption of entertainment content could distract young people from acquiring digital skills, innovation and entrepreneurship needed for national development.

He has consistently maintained that digital platforms should serve as tools for learning, creativity, innovation and economic empowerment rather than mere entertainment.

Echoing that position, digital economy expert Mr Isaiah Pam called for greater digital literacy, saying users should understand both the opportunities and risks associated with social media.

He said while digital platforms provide opportunities for business growth, networking and access to global markets, users must exercise caution and avoid harmful online practices.

In the same vein, youth development advocate Ms Naomi Adeyemi urged young creators to prioritise value-driven content, protect their privacy and build sustainable income streams instead of relying solely on virtual gifts.

According to her, responsible use of technology remains essential to ensuring that Nigeria’s expanding digital economy translates into youth empowerment and national development.

Analysts say Benjamin’s advice on diversifying income sources underscores the need for creators to complement earnings from social media with investments, skills acquisition and other sustainable ventures.

As millions of Nigerians continue to embrace TikTok, stakeholders agree that greater emphasis should be placed on responsible content creation, digital literacy and protecting vulnerable users from exploitation.

Ultimately, observers say whether TikTok Live becomes a platform for entrepreneurship or a channel for e-begging will depend largely on how creators and users choose to engage with it.

For many, the future of Nigeria’s digital economy will not be determined simply by how much money changes hands online, but by whether digital platforms are used to create lasting value, innovation and sustainable livelihoods. (NAN)

The Non-story of Cross-border Power Debt, and the Story Worth Telling

By Tobi Oluwatola

Every few months, the same headline returns: Benin, Togo and Niger owe Nigeria billions of naira for electricity. This quarter it is about ₦17.45 billion. It arrives with the same wave of indignation, that we are keeping our neighbours in light while our own citizens sit in darkness. It makes for a good headline. It is also, on the numbers, a non-story, and it distracts from a far more hopeful one.

Begin with what that figure actually is. The payment risk it seems to describe was dealt with years ago. Under the Eligible Customer reforms of 2017 and the Willing Buyer, Willing Seller framework of 2019, cross-border and large-industrial electricity supply was moved onto direct, guaranteed bilateral contracts entered by neighbouring utilities directly with Nigerian Generating Companies (Gencos).

To buy power this way, a customer must post a letter of credit or a bank guarantee to the market operator before a single megawatt flows. That is precisely why the energy trade with our neighbours works: it was designed to be commercially disciplined, and it runs on surplus capacity, not on power taken from Nigerian homes, and is capped at less than 10 per cent of the power on the grid.

So what is the ₦17.45 billion? It is a residual service charge, the regulated fee that covers the regulator, the transmission company, the bulk trader and the market and system operator, running at around $20 million a quarter.

The value of the electricity itself, the energy and capacity for the roughly 350 megawatts supplied, is settled separately under those guaranteed contracts, and it is larger. The number in the news is the small administrative slice of the trade, and it happens to be the one layer not yet fully behind a guarantee.

The neighbours pay this slice to the generating companies, alongside their energy and capacity charge; it is the generating company that pays the market operator. Even that is now being closed: the system operator is moving to secure its service charges the same way the energy contracts already are. Where a balance lags, it is usually an older government-linked plant on legacy terms, inside a market simply mid-way through a transition, not a foreign default.

This is the part worth dwelling on, because it points to what Nigeria should do next. The same commercial discipline that quietly fixed the cross-border trade also governs the power that our factories buy.

On that same June day, 228 megawatts went directly from generators to Nigerian industry, to steel mills, food processors and manufacturers, under guaranteed bilateral contracts. Those customers pay, they get reliable power, and they sidestep the collection weakness of the distribution network entirely. It is, without fanfare, the healthiest part of the whole system.

That is the segment to grow with urgency, precisely because it does not wait on fixing everything else first. Nigeria can expand commercially-contracted supply both on the grid, as embedded generation, and off it, as captive plants and mini-grids, and it can start where the money is most bankable: agro-processing zones and staple-crop clusters first, then commercial hubs and the big cities.

These are dense, high-value, creditworthy loads that can carry cost-reflective, guarantee-backed contracts today. Every megawatt sold this way is a megawatt that is actually paid for, that guarantees more industrial output, more jobs, and proof to lenders that the model scales.

The same logic can be carried into the last and largest corner of the sector. Most of the roughly ₦6.8 trillion that generators are owed sits in the relationship between the distribution and generation companies.

Here too the fix is already in motion: the regulator’s 2024 move to bilateral trading is pulling generators and distributors off the old single-buyer pool and onto direct, guarantee-backed contracts. By the middle of last year, fewer than a third of grid generators had such contracts; the rest were still supplying on trust, which is how the debt builds.

Finishing that transition, patiently and without disrupting supply, so that a distribution-to-generation contract carries the same discipline as an industrial or cross-border one, would close the single biggest hole in the system.

None of this excuses the losses inside our own network, and that work matters too. On 28 June about 399 megawatts, a power station’s worth, was lost inside the grid before reaching any customer, and the larger loss is downstream, where distribution and collection losses of 30 to 40 per cent cost the distribution companies hundreds of billions of naira a quarter.

Metering, reinforcing the weakest transmission corridors and a serious posture against vandalism and theft are the tools, and every recovered megawatt is the cheapest power in the country. These are being tackled; they should be tackled faster.

So let us retire the annual ritual of outrage over the ₦17.45 billion. We should note properly: it is a modest service charge on a trade that Nigeria disciplined and guaranteed years ago, not evidence that our neighbours are fleecing us.

The more useful truth is that Nigeria already has a model that works; direct, guaranteed, bilateral contracts, proven with international customers and with our own industry. The job now is neither dramatic nor punitive.

It is to scale that model into our agro-processing zones and cities, extend it to the rest of the value chain, and keep closing the leaks at home. The people running this sector are, for the most part, already on that road. What they need is for the rest of us to help them move faster along it, not to keep relitigating a debt that was settled, by design, a long time ago.

Figures are drawn from NERC market reports and the National Control Centre’s daily load allocation for 28 June; the market operator invoice reflects regulated service charges, not the value of energy supplied.

Tobi Oluwatola is a partner at AP3 Advisory Services and chief executive of TAO Technologies. He advises on the UK PACT Nigeria Energy Programme.

By Tochukwu Jimo Obi

The recent kidnapping of students and teachers in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State has once again exposed the frightening state of insecurity confronting Nigeria. Condemnations have continued to trail Friday’s bandits’ attack on three schools in the area, where an unspecified number of students and teachers were abducted, while two persons were reportedly killed.

The attack, which occurred on May 16, saw armed bandits storm the community and abduct staff, students, and pupils from three schools; Community Grammar School, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, and L.

Worst of all, one of the teachers kidnapped during the attack was reportedly beheaded by the terrorists, a horrifying development that has deepened public outrage. Such brutality underscores the dangerous evolution of criminal activities in Nigeria, where terrorists and bandits now operate with alarming boldness and cruelty. The gruesome killing has further strengthened calls for urgent and decisive action from government authorities at all levels.

This unfortunate incident of school attacks is happening yet again despite repeated assurances from security agencies that schools across the country are safe. Nigerians have continued to hear promises of improved intelligence gathering, stronger patrols, and enhanced protection for vulnerable communities, yet attacks persist with devastating consequences. The contradiction between official assurances and the reality on the ground has weakened public confidence in the nation’s security architecture.

Another disturbing trend is that insecurity is rapidly spreading into the South-West region, an area once considered relatively safer compared to other parts of the country. Reports of Lakurawa terrorists and other armed groups establishing footholds in parts of the region have heightened fears that criminal networks are expanding their operations unchecked. The Oyo school kidnapping has therefore become more than a local tragedy; it is a warning sign that no region in Nigeria can afford to feel immune from terrorism and banditry.

Every now and then, government officials continue to assure citizens that security agencies are on top of the situation, yet many innocent people are still being killed and abducted with little or no arrests made afterward. More troubling is the fact that these attacks reportedly lasted for over two hours without any intervention from security operatives. This glaring security failure leaves Nigerians asking difficult but necessary questions about the nation’s emergency response capabilities.

How could terrorists, moving in large numbers on motorbikes, invade communities, abduct many people, and still escape without being tracked, stopped, or pursued effectively? What then are the military aircraft and advanced security equipment acquired with public funds meant for if they cannot be quickly deployed during emergencies? These are questions that citizens deserve answers to, especially as insecurity continues to consume lives and livelihoods across the country.

The Oyo incident has once again strengthened arguments for the establishment of state police across Nigeria. It is now obvious and evidently clear that the country’s centralized security structure requires urgent decentralization, similar to what operates in many secure nations around the world. State policing, if properly regulated and managed, could improve intelligence gathering, rapid response, and community-based security operations, particularly in rural areas that are often neglected under the current system.

It is no longer enough for leaders to merely condemn these attacks without taking concrete and sustained actions to secure the nation. President Bola Tinubu, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, must urgently engage all stakeholders in the security sector, including international partners where necessary, to ensure that these terrorists are decisively defeated.

Government must also ensure that budgeted funds meant for security agencies, especially for the purchase of military hardware and equipment, are fully released and properly utilized. Beyond military action, authorities must intensify efforts to prevent the recruitment of vulnerable youths into criminal and terrorist groups. Nigerians are tired of mourning innocent victims. These killings must stop.

Tochukwu Jimo Obi, a concerned Nigerian writes from Obosi Anambra state.

By Fortune Abang

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, 81, sworn in for a seventh term after nearly four decades in power, has once again intensified debate over gerontocracy and political succession in Africa.

Museveni, who first assumed office in 1986, has now extended his rule into a fifth decade, making him one of the world’s longest-serving heads of state.

His latest mandate, expected to run until 2031, follows the January 2026 election in which he secured about 71.65 per cent of the vote, according to official results, defeating opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine.

His continued stay in power has been enabled by key constitutional changes over time, including the removal of presidential term limits in 2005 and the abolition of the presidential age ceiling in 2017, reforms that effectively removed legal restrictions on tenure.

Across Africa, analysts say Uganda reflects a broader governance pattern in which long-serving leaders consolidate authority over extended periods.

Comparable examples often cited include Cameroon’s Paul Biya, in power since 1982, and Congo-Brazzaville’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, who first assumed office in 1979, both of whom have also presided over decades of uninterrupted or repeatedly renewed rule.

While Museveni’s supporters argue that his leadership has provided continuity and relative stability in a region frequently affected by conflict, critics say prolonged incumbency has gradually narrowed political competition and weakened institutional independence.

Uganda has maintained a degree of internal stability and played active roles in regional diplomacy and security operations in East and Central Africa.

Supporters point to these outcomes as evidence that long-term leadership can deliver policy continuity and state cohesion.

However, opposition voices and analysts argue that stability has come at a democratic cost, pointing to declining electoral competitiveness, constrained civic space and increasing centralisation of power around the executive.

The debate intensified after the removal of presidential term limits in 2005, followed by the scrapping of the age ceiling in 2017, which together removed two major constitutional barriers to leadership rotation.

These changes have been widely cited by governance analysts as pivotal in reshaping Uganda’s democratic structure.

In the January 2026 election, Museveni again defeated Bobi Wine, who garnered roughly 24.7 per cent of the vote, amid allegations from the opposition of irregularities and political repression during the electoral process.

Supporters of Museveni argue that his long rule has enabled economic transformation, infrastructure development and strengthened Uganda’s role in regional diplomacy.

Some regional leaders, including Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye, have previously described him as a stabilising figure in East Africa, crediting Uganda with supporting peace processes and regional cooperation.

Yet, critics argue that prolonged rule risks institutional stagnation, where governance structures become overly dependent on individual leadership rather than strong, independent institutions.

Analysts warn that this can weaken succession systems and limit democratic renewal.

A foreign policy analyst, speaking anonymously, said prolonged leadership can normalise “institutional dependence on individuals rather than systems,” arguing that such conditions undermine long-term democratic consolidation.

“No nation can sustainably develop when power remains concentrated in the same hands for decades while institutions fail to mature independently,” he said.

Beyond Uganda, Africa continues to record some of the world’s longest-serving leaders, reinforcing concerns about generational turnover in governance.

In several of these systems, electoral competition remains limited and constitutional reforms have often coincided with extended presidential tenure.

Foreign affairs commentator Collins Nweke argues that the central issue is not age itself, but accountability and leadership renewal, noting that political systems weaken when succession is delayed or constrained.

Other analysts emphasise the importance of civic awareness and institutional safeguards, particularly term limits, which they describe as critical tools for preventing excessive concentration of power.

A diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity, called for stronger electoral transparency mechanisms, including credible voter registration systems, independent election management bodies, and robust domestic and international observation frameworks.

An academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said stronger civic awareness could help societies resist unconstitutional tenure elongation.

“When citizens are politically informed and organised, sit-tight ambitions lose legitimacy and public support,” he said.

Museveni’s seventh term therefore reflects a wider continental tension between political continuity and democratic renewal, raising questions about whether African democracies are evolving toward stronger institutions or settling into prolonged cycles of personalised rule.

For supporters, his leadership represents stability in a volatile region.

For critics, it signals the entrenchment of gerontocracy and weakening democratic competition.

Between these positions lies a structural challenge that extends beyond Uganda; whether institutions in African states are strong enough to outlast individuals and guarantee orderly political succession. (NAN)