In Nigeria, it is easier to publicly discredit a woman who speaks about rape than it is to get justice against the man who actually committed it.
Rape in Nigeria is drastically underreported. In fact, national surveys show that only 3.3% of sexual violence cases are ever reported to law enforcement. Many survivors stay silent because of shame, stigma, fear of victim-blaming and a lack of trust in the system. Yet, this month, one of the most organised and relentless investigations Nigerians conducted online was not into rape itself, but into whether a girl was lying or not.
We are barely two months into 2026 and the number of rape and sexual assault allegations being discussed online is alarming. But in the middle of this crisis, the loudest voices online are not asking how to stop perpetrators; instead, they are searching for ways to discredit women who speak.
Recent Cases and Online Reaction
On February 8, 2026, content creator Fems Thrift was lured to a property in Ajao Estate, Lagos, by a man named Abidemi Emmanuel, 23, who had contacted her on Instagram under the guise of offering her a modelling job. For security reasons, she went with a friend, and according to reports, both were assaulted at knifepoint and threatened with violence and blackmail if they spoke out. They eventually reported the incident, and it sparked outrage and calls for accountability. The suspect was later arrested and his bail was denied, even after his family allegedly attempted to bribe the victim with 500,000 naira to drop the charges. He was arraigned before a Lagos magistrate’s court on February 17, with the next hearing set for March 19.
Around the same period, another content creator, Fried_Plantain, alleged that a fellow creator, Jomiloju, sexually harassed her under the guise of mentorship. While some online users rallied in support, the accused continued to post as though nothing had happened because in Nigeria, for most men, nothing does happen, and the odds are completely in his favour.
However, it was the case of a young TikTok user, popularly known as Mirabel, later identified as 19-year-old Abigail Nsuka, that got the most intense public scrutiny. A video surfaced in which she claimed she had been raped inside her home, knocked unconscious, and later taunted by her attacker on TikTok. The story caused public outcry, but within hours, the conversation took another turn.
All it took was for a man online to claim to be her neighbour and say she was lying. Nigerians transformed into amateur detectives, poking holes in her story to find inconsistencies. They called in a popular content creator known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), a self-described activist with a large following who is neither a therapist, psychologist, social worker, nor law enforcement officer.
What followed should have provoked as much concern as the original accusation but did not.
VDM contacted the victim during an ongoing investigation without authority. He interrogated her, solicited sensitive material from her, and recorded and shared the phone conversation publicly without consent.
Mirabel, a teenager already in a mental health crisis, later said the rape had not happened. Whatever the truth of her claim is, the method through which the “confession” was obtained should disturb us if we actually cared about justice.
A social media personality with no professional training interrogated a mentally vulnerable hospitalised teenager who had reportedly attempted suicide during this period. She was in no position to produce a reliable testimony under public pressure, yet the internet, especially those determined to prove she was a liar, ran with it.
Even after the law enforcement confirmed that investigations were ongoing and that she had received medical attention, many online users still preferred the words of a content creator over a government agency. They demanded that she be severely punished, despite the fact that investigations had not been concluded and no accused had been named.
The Backlash Against Advocacy
As sexual assaults continue to surface, women have taken to social media to protest gender-based violence. Simi, a popular Nigerian artist, spoke on X about rape culture and urged men to hold other men accountable. She questioned why people felt the need to defend rapists and said what many women feel everyday: that women are not safe anywhere.
A man replied by asking about false rape accusations, and she responded, “STFU.” This was because she was addressing an ongoing epidemic of sexual violence, yet he chose that moment to focus on the rare exception. This response triggered men on X, who cyberbullied her and accused her of ignoring false allegations.
The irony of this episode is how men who claimed outrage over false rape accusations responded by circulating fake apology screenshots to discredit her and reduce her argument to a spectacle.
Still, Simi maintained her position that isolated false claims should not silence genuine victims. Simi asserted that calling on men to cease rape is not a controversial statement; that conversations about stopping rape should not be hijacked by a debate about false accusers every single time women speak. She was right, but she was punished for it by the internet, which has perfected the art of redirecting outrage toward women who speak rather than men who act.
Evidence and Context
Now let’s leave sentiment aside and talk about evidence.
The National Human Rights Commission reported receiving 11,200 reported rape cases in Nigeria in 2020. The Lagos state police recorded 111 sexual assaults in just three months between April and June 2023. According to the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, 31% of women aged 15–49 have experienced physical violence since age 15, and 9% have experienced sexual violence. UNICEF reports that one in four Nigerian girls and one in ten boys experience sexual violence before the age of 18.
Every time a woman speaks about rape in Nigeria or anywhere, there is a particular type of person who appears to raise the spectre of false accusations. They treat it as an equaliser—the “gotcha” moment that neutralises all conversation.
Research found that false allegations are between 2 and 10%. In other words, for every 10 rape cases, at most one or possibly none, is a false claim. Let’s put it another way: even if we accept the highest estimate of 10%, that means 90% of women who report rape are telling the truth.
Yet, we have built an entire culture of scepticism and public humiliation around rare exceptions while the overwhelming majority of real victims watch and go quiet.
Yes, false accusations are serious, and the law addresses them. But demanding that every conversation about rape revolve around the 2 to 10% ensures that survivors calculate the cost of speaking before they even open their mouths. It protects the perpetrators more than it protects victims.
The “Not all Men, But Always a Man” Rhetoric
When women respond to these crises by saying “not all men, but always a man”, they are speaking statistically. Globally, 93% of sexual violence perpetrators are male.
Content Creator Eric Gugua recently used the example of paternity fraud to challenge this framing, suggesting that by the same logic, one could say “not all women, but always a woman” in cases of paternity fraud. The comparison was tone-deaf in context because it was said in the middle of a conversation about rape. But let’s engage this properly.
Yes. Women are the ones who carry pregnancies. Women, therefore, are the ones who can commit paternity fraud. That is a biological fact. And if someone said “not all women, but always a woman” in a conversation specifically about paternity fraud, most women would not flinch because they are not guilty of it. The statement would be accurate and the anger would be misplaced.
So here is a question that is worth pondering on: Why does “not all men, but always a man” in a conversation about rape, femicide, and gender-based violence in general, which are overwhelmingly committed by men, make so many men furious? Why is there the urgent need to be named publicly as one of the good ones?
One thing we need to understand is that women are not angry at individual men when they say this. They are angry at a system that allows men to rape with impunity and a culture where 34% of Nigerians still believe “indecent dressing” is the leading cause of rape.
If that anger does not apply to you, it does not apply to you. But if the statement feels like an accusation, perhaps you should ask yourself why.
Every time a woman who speaks out about rape is mocked, cyberbullied, interrogated, or publicly shamed, every other woman who has a story to tell is watching and deciding whether the humiliation is worth it. The decision to come forward becomes more difficult.
Busola Dakolo made that decision in 2019, when she came forward about Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo. While she received support, she was also met with invasive questions. People asked why she waited and asked for evidence that no court had required of her.
After the Mirabel case earlier mentioned in this article, women were asked to apologise for supporting or even daring to believe a girl before the full facts were in. Many women responded that they would rather support a potential liar who didn’t accuse anybody than a potential rapist who could be walking free.
This is a rational response to a system that has shown them repeatedly that it will not protect them.
The disturbing part is how the same people who flooded TikTok and X demanding that Mirabel be exposed, that Simi be cancelled, and that false accusers be punished, have never organised with the same energy to demand justice for confirmed cases of sexual violence.
We need to collectively change our reaction to rape allegations, not because every accusation is automatically true but because the society interrogates survivors faster than it investigates perpetrators and this sets priorities in the wrong order.
What has been significant in these moments is the way women continue to publicly stand in solidarity to defend and validate those who speak out despite the threat of harassment and ridicule. Seeing others support them in a society that angrily interrogates and humiliates victims helps survivors to keep fighting.
What society wants is to shut one woman down so that another will be too afraid to speak up and the violence can continue. However, when women are supported, it encourages others to come forward to speak too. This will ensure that we hold perpetrators accountable.
Nigeria does not have a false rape accusation problem. It has a rape problem, an underreporting problem, a conviction problem, and a silence problem that is maintained by the relentless policing of how women react when they have been violated.
Simi’s questions still stand and still require answers:
If you are not guilty, why are you so triggered?
