Amidst Nigeria’s harsh economic realities, an alarming number of youths have turned to selling explicit contents on various online platforms, often disregarding the far-reaching consequences of their actions on their lives, reputation, and mental well-being.
Earlier this month, social media buzzed with a flurry of shocking video clips featuring a senior Equatorial Guinean official, Balthazar Engonga, engaging in intimate encounters with multiple women.The videos, filmed in various locations including his office, left viewers stunned.
Just as the scandalous footage of Engonga was sending ripples through the digital world, a new, equally provocative storm began to brew in Nigeria’s online sphere.
The spotlight quickly shifted to Ivie Aigbedion, a woman also known by her provocative nickname –Yahweh’s Rare Unique Masterpiece.
Nude photos and explicit videos of Aigbedion began circulating rapidly, flooding timelines, and quickly rivalling the attention garnered by Engonga’s explicit videos.
Aigbedion, who had already gained a reputation for posting semi-nude pictures—often tagging Nigerian music sensation Ayodeji Balogun, aka Wizkid—was no stranger to controversy.
Over time, to cater to the high demand from men willing to pay premium prices for her “rare and unique” nude content, Aigbedion set up a Snapchat account, where she offered explicit photos and videos to paying subscribers.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that earlier this month, some of her fans who wanted to break the exclusivity, downloaded explicit content from her private Snapchat story and shared them online.
Within 24 hours, Aigbedion’s photos and videos had circulated widely across online platforms.
When some of her followers on social media tagged her in videos from her private snap, Aigbedion responded, “Please don’t send me posts like this or tag me in them. I have no interest in it.”
Adding a proverbial fuel to the already burning flame of passion, the next day, the adult content creator began posting the “leaked” explicit photos and videos from her account.
For over three days, ‘Yahweh’ became a top trending term on social media in Nigeria, drawing a flood of intrigued and curious users eager to catch a glimpse of Aigbedion’s oiled body.
While a horde of male fans on social media lapped up Aigbedion’s explicit content like thirsty German Shepherds, checks by our correspondent showed that her Facebook account where she sells her organic skincare mixtures maintained a morally “clean” photo album.
None of her nude photos made it to the social networking platform with over three billion users, owing to its strict censorship policies, which bar nude photos, obscene posts, and content depicting sexual acts.
Adult merchandise
In multiple photos and videos shared by Aigbedion and viewed by Saturday PUNCH, she appears in a nursing uniform in one scene, while in others, she reveals her breasts and private parts in close-up shots. Two other videos recorded against a dimly lit background captured her as she oiled up her body and engaged in self-pleasuring.
Responding to a social media user who criticised her decision to post explicit content, the nudist wrote, “You can’t shame me, baby. The person who paid for my subscription and leaked the videos for free for y’all to see? They are the real morons.
“My DM has been buzzing since yesterday. Do you know how many men wanna see more of my drip clips?”
With a touch of sarcasm, a social media user, The Cook, responded to her that the men who initially released her nudes were not morons as she thought them to be.
“You’re making money from the men patronising you, and the men patronising you are also making money from your videos by leaking them to Telegram channel owners who are also making N5,000 per subscriber, by the way. Everyone’s winning. Isn’t Yahweh great?” he said.
As her explicit photos and videos gained widespread attention, Aigbedion adjusted her Snapchat subscription rates and encouraged more enthusiasts eager for more “visions of paradise” to subscribe to her private videos.
First created in 2011, Snapchat is a multimedia instant messaging app that many people use to make money by selling photos or videos of themselves. These photos or short videos – snaps – can be directed privately to selected contacts, or a semi-public “Story” or a public “Story.”
Account owners can subscribe to Premium Snapchat Accounts, through which they offer exclusive content to subscribers for a monthly fee.
Snapchat’s guidelines and terms of usage state that it prohibits “promoting, distributing, or sharing pornographic content,” including commercial activities geared toward the same.
However, it generally permits “depictions of nudity in non-sexual contexts,” a clause that has provided leeway for many adult models to use the platform to generate significant revenue by tapping into the high demand for explicit content.
Attracting praise and ridicule
Following the release of her nude content online, Saturday PUNCH gathered that Yahweh’s Masterpiece gained more than 20,000 new followers, mostly men.
“Someone called my mum from the United Kingdom and told her she saw me fingering myself online,” Aigbedion disclosed in a post on Wednesday.
In her replies, many commenters praised her for her feat, while others criticised her for daring to put her unclad body out in the market square of the Internet like salt and pepper.
Having heard of the new temptress seemingly set to lead the faithful astray, some users online flocked to Aigbedion’s account, where they proclaimed divine judgment upon her – though only after indulging their curious eyes on her oiled form.
“Stop that!” Aigbedion cautioned a fan, perhaps shocked by the vulgar comparison he made with her Yahweh nickname – an affiliation that many of the Jewish and Christian faiths would consider blasphemous.
“I’m sorry my queen, I misspoke,” the online user later apologised, “It won’t happen again. But you are a goddess and I’m ready to dedicate my future to serve and worship you and you alone.”
