Onome Amuge
When TikTok published its 2025 update to its global Creator Rewards Programme earlier this year, the announcement was greeted with enthusiasm across several emerging markets, except in Nigeria. Africa’s largest creator economy, home to tens of millions of young digital natives and the continent’s most influential cultural exporters, was noticeably absent from the list of eligible countries. Only Morocco, Egypt and South Africa made the cut.
For Nigeria’s booming creator economy, the message was an indication that their content drives global trends and platform growth, yet they cannot earn directly from it. The exclusion has sparked urgent questions about the commercial value of digital labour, youth economic inclusion, and Africa’s position in the global platform economy. Policymakers and industry experts are now asking why the continent’s largest hub of digital cultural output is shut out of one of the world’s most lucrative monetisation programmes.
This sentiment, widely shared but rarely formalised, was recently articulated by Basil Udotai, founding partner and technology-policy lead at Johnson & Wilner LLP, in a LinkedIn commentary that is now circulating across policy and creative circles.
“Do you know that TikTok does not pay content creators directly in Nigeria?” he asked, describing what he views as a structural exclusion of Nigerian creators from the global monetisation chain.
Udotai, who previously served as director of cybersecurity at the Office of the National Security Adviser, draws parallels to an earlier episode in the 2000s when GoDaddy briefly blacklisted Nigerian users and suspended all domain registrations.
“We acted swiftly, engaged GoDaddy directly, and within days the suspension was lifted. Today, we face a much bigger version of that problem, and it affects millions of young Nigerians,” he said.
At issue is TikTok’s formal confirmation that, as of its 2025 update, the platform pays creators in only three African markets. Nigeria, a market that has become synonymous with viral Afrobeats challenges, comedy skits, fashion trends and online storytelling, remains locked out.
Creators attempting to access the programme say they encounter a maze of what Udotai describes as verification loops, silent rejections, cross-border payout barriers, and inconsistent eligibility rules, all of which effectively erase Nigeria from monetisation eligibility.
“In many cases, they are right to feel excluded. The system is designed in a way that leaves them confused, disqualified or simply ignored,” he added.
Nigeria’s digital creators operate in a precarious environment despite their global visibility. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have become more than outlets for expression, as they are marketing channels, distribution pipelines and, in many countries, reliable income sources. But for Nigerians, it is worrisome that they dominate global conversation but remain locked out of the economic upside.
Gift Rogers, a Nigerian filmmaker, described the exclusion as deeply frustrating.
“Imagine the growth if Nigerian creators could directly monetise globally. It would open doors for more ambitious projects, better production quality and sustainable creative careers,” she said.
Rogers says she has had to rely on sponsorships, corporate partnerships and direct audience support to fund her projects. “Platforms like TikTok are not just entertainment spaces.They are ecosystems. And exclusion has real economic consequences,” she said.
It is a view echoed across the creative economy, which Nigeria’s government routinely cites as one of its most promising non-oil sectors. But creators say policy and regulatory engagement have not kept pace with the realities of their industries.
Basil Udotai argues that government engagement with global digital platforms tends to be reactive, enforcement-driven and focused more on sanctions than on securing economic rights for young people.
“Many of the agencies that ought to engage these global platforms on behalf of young Nigerians appear more focused on issuing million-dollar sanctions than advancing the economic rights of our youth,” he said.
Industry professionals say this reactive posture is a recurring pattern. For instance, foreign platforms operating in Nigeria face persistent FX and compliance challenges, including limitations on local currency conversions, settlement delays, ambiguous tax expectations, and regulatory uncertainty; issues which may help explain TikTok’s cautious approach.
But critics argue that, without diplomatic and regulatory engagement, platforms default to risk-avoidance strategies that exclude entire markets.
Some analysts warn that Nigeria’s frustration needs to be understood within a broader context of how global platforms view the continent.
Venus Tawiah, a technology consultant who has studied creator-platform economics across Africa, argues that TikTok’s approach is consistent with a long-standing pattern.
Tawiah advised creators to treat TikTok as an amplification engine, not a guaranteed revenue stream. “Use TikTok for what it does best and align with channels that pay, or build our own,” she said.
Her remarks touch on a growing sentiment among African creators who increasingly believe that digital sovereignty, not just platform inclusion, is the future. With Africa being the world’s second-largest and youngest continent, analysts say the creator economy is too large to remain structurally dependent on the goodwill of foreign platforms.
For Idris Mamukuyomi, founder of Singforus, a soon-to-launch African creator-tech platform, TikTok’s exclusion should be a wake-up call.
“Nigeria has the volume, the creators, and the culture. What we lack is monetisation architecture designed for our realities,” he said.
Singforus aims to build what Mamukuyomi calls a Voice Economy, a model where African creators earn directly from African audiences without waiting for foreign platforms to determine when their markets become eligible.
“Africa shouldn’t just create the culture; we should own the economics of it. Exclusions like this shouldn’t determine our future again,” he added.
Another voice in the debate, Peter Inyang, founder of TradeTech Pulse, believes the core issue lies in Nigeria’s digital economic policy architecture.
“We have a Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. That’s the ministry that should be looking into this,” he said.
According to Inyang, Nigeria has yet to articulate a national strategy that defines how Nigerians benefit from the massive data and economic value generated on global digital platforms.
“The digital economy is really the data economy. A national digital economy strategy that doesn’t prioritise this is already behind the times,” he said.
Inyang is confident TikTok will eventually expand monetisation to Nigeria, citing PayPal’s long-delayed but eventual opening of inbound payments to Nigerians after years of market pressure.
But he stresses that the policy response must be proactive, not reactive. “The relevant ministry must start paying attention to issues like this and address them in real time.”
Experts say the playbook for engagement already exists. Udotai’s reference to the GoDaddy incident is cited as evidence that firm, coordinated negotiations can yield quick results when executed correctly.
A coordinated response, he says, should address:
- Why TikTok excludes Nigeria from the monetisation list
- Whether compliance or fraud concerns drive the exclusion
- FX and payout constraints limiting platform operations
- Possible regulatory barriers
- A roadmap to enable transparent, direct earning for creators
The TikTok dispute is unfolding at a moment when Nigeria is trying to carve out a place in the global digital economy while dealing with macroeconomic instability, high inflation, and declining investor sentiment. The government has repeatedly identified youth-driven digital sectors, content creation, fintech, gaming, and design, as engines of future growth.
Yet the TikTok monetisation gap exposes the fact that Nigeria has cultural influence, creator volume, and digital vibrancy, but lacks the structural integration needed to convert this into sustained value.
For now, millions of Nigerian creators will continue feeding TikTok’s global engagement engines without direct earnings. But the reaction to the 2025 monetisation update indicates that this time around, a broad alliance forming across policy experts, creators, entrepreneurs and analysts assert that the country can no longer afford to be a spectator in its own digital economy.
