Struggling to survive amid poverty, inflation and economic pressure, Nigerian students retreat to the maws of the sex trade. Desperation is turned into addiction and changes who they are, drawing others into a burgeoning underground campus life built on secrecy and survival.
Jennifer (not her real name) stood at the window of her small hostel room in Maiduguri, looking squintingly at the wall paint. Then came the sting of despondency that she’d experienced from moving from her rural hometown to the University of Maiduguri. Her father was a retired teacher, and her mother, a petty trader, had been unable to save enough money to cover her tuition fees for her first year. Jennifer’s reality was bleak in her second year of Mass Communication: she was broke, hungry and starving.
“It wasn’t something I chose lightly,” she began telling WikkiTimes, with a mumbling voice.
“I pushed it for months, cramming the little my parents sent me. But what happens if you have to live on N2000 for a week? She asked. “Friends baulked at me because I still taught primary school pupils for N10,000 per month. They were like, “Jennifer, this is not a weak life.”
And just as far away, at the University of Ilorin, hundreds of miles away, Aisha paced her room with fear. Her situation mirrored Jennifer’s. She was the daughter of a polygamous family, with too many mouths to satisfy and too few resources to spare, who had gone to university hoping to be a lawyer. But the demands of university life and the reminder that her family couldn’t help her had made the dream a waking nightmare. Aisha had considered quitting a number of times, but she didn’t want to spoil her family’s dreams.
But in Nigeria, the Jennifer and Aisha story isn’t a singular one. Student bodies on campuses everywhere are drowning under the weight of poverty. Some—these two young women—can no longer do better than trade their bodies for money. What started as a temporary survival mechanism often became a way of life full of trouble, entrapment, and bribery.
The Economic Reality Behind Desperation
Jennifer and Aisha’s experience is just one symptom of a systemic issue. Since the removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria in 2023 and the steep rise in tuition fees and essential goods, thousands of families can no longer afford to send their children to higher education. Transportation, food, and even hostels were so expensive that students couldn’t bear to live there any longer.
Jennifer explained how the fuel subsidy cut directly affected her: “My parents used to send me at least enough to buy food and travel. But once the subsidy was cut, all that doubled. My retired father was late for a change, and my mom’s little shop never sold enough to pay the bills or feed the family.
For Aisha, the tuition hike that most Nigerian universities introduced came on top of that. “The fees at school just kept increasing. I started borrowing from friends, but you can’t keep that up for so long.” she wept.
Inflation only made things worse. Many students spent days without eating, relieving themselves with water and prayer during lectures. Jennifer and Aisha were like many other students in this economy: at a crossroads, forced to look to unconventional means of getting by.
A Descent into the Bedroom Economy
Jennifer’s spiral into the “Bedroom Economy” began innocently enough. One friend in her class told her about a WhatsApp group where girls “meet” rich men for dating. It initially disgusted her. But hunger and imminent eviction from her rented apartment compelled her hand. Jennifer reluctantly went along, but before long, she was talking to a politician visiting town for a meeting
Their first meeting was surreal. He took her to a fancy hotel, where the shiny chandeliers and fluffy carpets were worlds away from her spartan hostel bed. The visit ended swiftly, but the cheque he left her later was a lifeline. With it, she could afford rent, groceries, and even new clothes. She was in charge for the first time in months.
But control was an illusion. All the financial ease Jennifer felt from that first payment also came at a cost: a quiet but pervasive reliance on this new way of life. The terror and shame she’d felt had worn off gradually, with the dawning feeling of normality and even authority. She justified herself if she had to, pretending she was doing whatever it took to stay alive.
Aisha’s story in Ilorin was no different. She’d been introduced to transactional sex by a roommate who had promised it was a fix.
“I grew up watching my mother struggle to feed us,” she explained, her eyes filling with tears. “When I got into the University of Ilorin, I promised to make my family proud. But everything is so expensive. By my second semester, I was already borrowing money from friends and skipping meals.”
Aisha’s first client was a traditional titleholder from a local area, a man twice her age who liked younger students. At first, Aisha didn’t feel like it.
She admitted that her first experience was deeply unsettling. “I cried afterwards. I kept asking myself if I was still the same person. But when I held that wad of cash in my hand, I felt…powerful. Like for the first time, I was in control of my life.” For Aisha, money was too great to pass up. Soon she was serving more clients – police officers, businessmen, and politicians.
The Addiction Takes Hold
What had begun as an escape valve quickly became a drug habit for both women. For Jennifer and Aisha, the cash had not stayed, but rather the thrill and validation that went along with the experiences. They started to have meetings with clients, and their academics started to deteriorate. The lure of quick cash and an empty life riddled Jennifer with all the former good intentions. In Aisha’s case, necessity and desire separated until she could no longer tell them apart.
They were addicted not just to money. Across campus, the two women also began to go out sexually for pleasure with men on campus, not for money, but to feed the hunger they had planted. Jennifer saw it as a ‘severe craving, a hunger that never satiated’ For Aisha, it was a need, an urge she couldn’t resist, and that left her unable to stop herself but elated.
Jennifer and Aisha rose to become the centre of their campuses as addictions grew stronger. Their stories and apparent “win” energised others to be like them. The two women started attracting friends and acquaintances to the same networks that had started their descent. They sold convincingly, selling their way of life as a real answer to the economic predicament all students experienced.
Through WhatsApp and Telegram groups, Jennifer and Aisha connected fellow students with potential customers. These networks worked undercover, using cryptic codes and stringent vetting. Members met politicians, business icons, and senior military and paramilitary officials who were prepared to pay top dollar for privacy and intimacy. For some students, these networks were lifelines; for others, they were an entrapment.
A Growing Phenomenon Across Nigerian Universities
Jennifer and Aisha’s case is part of a growing trend in Nigerian Universities, where poverty has turned students into the Bedroom Economy. With the cost of living climbing and families lacking financial help, many young people are on the edge.
In hostels, we have stories of students who make their lives on trade, and the taboo surrounding these practices is slowly decreasing.
Social media is a big part of these stories. Student-to-student communication is much easier via WhatsApp and Instagram, as these sites make the client-seeking experience more private and lessen the chance of exposure. Most students will rationalise it as a short-term fix, but Jennifer and Aisha have discovered it is not always like that.
The Dark Side of the Bedroom Economy
The short-term economic respite Jennifer and Aisha receive through their way of life is nice, but the long-term impacts are bad. Both women have trauma and PTSD. Jennifer tells me she is depressed and estranged from herself. Aisha, whose dream is to become a lawyer, is afflicted with shame and self-hatred.
The health stakes are huge too. Even though they take precautions in order to have safe sex, the number and diversity of experiences they have are at high risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The Bedroom Economy has much larger implications for campus culture than the individual price tag. It is more often relationship-based and conventional value is replaced by an approach to life that is hard-nosed and pragmatic.
This piece published with support from WikkiTimes Media Foundation is part of a series that delves deep into the hidden struggles of Nigerian students. Over the next four months, we will publish a biweekly article detailing the untold, secretive sexual lives of students across universities and colleges in Northern Nigeria—exposing the realities behind closed doors and the challenges they face in the shadows of economic and societal pressures.