Nigerians are bleeding data — willingly, gleefully, and without an ounce of shame. We hand over our personal information as if it were spare change, forgetting that in the modern world, data is power, identity, and survival rolled into one. But what we are doing is not just reckless — it is suicidal.
Every day, millions of us trade away our digital selves for the illusion of convenience. We tap “Accept” faster than we breathe. We grant apps permission to see our messages, photos, and contacts just to use a filter or claim a giveaway. We connect to any free Wi-Fi as if hackers don’t exist. We fill online forms that ask for everything short of our DNA — and we don’t even blink.
We call it survival. We call it hustle. But it’s laziness — the intellectual kind. A deliberate blindness that says, “abeg, who data don epp?” We have normalised being exploited, shrugging it off with the weary cynicism of a people who believe they have bigger problems. And so, while we chase naira notes in the scorching sun, invisible hands mine our digital gold in the shadows — and we clap for them.
Our insouciance has become a national trait. The same Nigerian who would never leave their car unlocked will casually upload their driver’s licence, NIN, and BVN to a random Telegram group. We guard our wallets but expose our lives. We whisper about witches and village people, but ignore the real demons — data brokers, cybercriminals, and opportunistic corporations who know that in this country, privacy is cheap and silence is cheaper.
Make no mistake: this is not harmless. Our data is our reflection — our finances, our movements, our vulnerabilities, our voices. Each careless click, each blind acceptance, is a surrender. Banks, telcos, startups, even government agencies, are feasting on our ignorance. They hoard our information, trade it, monetise it — and when breaches happen, we hear nothing but the hollow echo of “technical glitch.”
The government demands more and more data — fingerprints, facial scans, phone numbers, family histories — but secures none of it. Every database built on public trust eventually leaks into the abyss of cyber black markets. Nigerians are left exposed, their digital identities floating in the underworld for pennies. Yet we move on. Always. Because “na small thing.”
We think survival excuses recklessness. But in truth, it only amplifies it. When a people have been beaten down by years of instability, privacy feels like an afterthought. What use is data protection when the light is out, rent is due, and fuel prices double overnight? And that is exactly the tragedy — that exhaustion has turned us into perfect victims.
But we must wake up. This carelessness is not resilience; it’s surrender dressed as survival. In the 21st century, ignorance is not a shield — it is a target on your back. Data is the new oil, but in Nigeria, we’ve become the crude — extracted, processed, and sold to the highest bidder while we scroll on in blissful apathy.
The truth is not gentle: we are being digitally colonised. Every careless form we fill, every app we install, every platform we trust — they are carving pieces of us, quietly, efficiently. We are trading our privacy for peanuts and emojis. We are volunteering for surveillance.
We like to boast about resilience, about how Nigerians can survive anything. But what happens when survival itself becomes the weapon used against us? When the hustle blinds us to the theft of our digital selves?
If we do not begin to treat data like blood — sacred, finite, life-defining — then the future will not ask for our consent. It will simply own us.
Because the day is coming — soon — when we will wake up and realise we’ve already been sold. Not by politicians. Not by colonisers. But by our own careless thumbs.
