The increasing desperation and rapacious tastes of our youths for illicit wealth is troubling. A slew of youths these days now seek just any avenue, including gnarly ventures, to make money.
They are now so inebriated by the ostentatious binge wracking the society that to them, the end now justifies whatever means they adopt to seek wealth.
That is the context in which we situate the shocking revelation from Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State. The traditional ruler of Onu Egume/Okura District in Dekina council of the state, HRH Ochimana Simon Anu, had last Tuesday publicly raised an alarm about alleged kidney sales among youths in his community.
According to the statement issued by his media aide, Momoh Idris Ospaca, the monarch alleged that some youths were obtaining money by selling their kidneys to purchase motorcycles and acquire other material possessions.
This beats the imagination. The discovery of the latest weird way of making money that has caught the fancy of our youths comes on the wake of another trending fad among them to trade their God-given reproductive ‘treasures’ for cash.
Many young female undergraduates and even secondary school students are said to have turned their eggs into a merchandise, selling them for money, while boys too are offering their semen to fertility centres for a game of lucre.
What soppy tricks will these youths not venture into for money these days? Many of them have had to segue from Yahoo yahoo to ‘Yahoo Plus,’ engaging in many frackish practices such as birthing naked in the open in broad daylight, eating bread with faeces and outright killings or burying people alive for money rituals etc.
They engage in these profanities only to splurge the emergency wealth on inanities such as flashy automobiles, women and booze!
The Kogi monarch has specifically ordered that a security committee be raised to investigate the allegations that youths in his domain are selling their kidneys to acquire some particular brands of motorcycles which have become a status symbol in the area.
The committee is supposed to examine youths, including underage persons, who have suddenly acquired expensive motorcycles and investigate where the money came from. The motorcycles mentioned are TVS and Haojue/Hajue Rubber brands, suspected to cost approximately ₦1 million to ₦2 million.
The monarch reportedly warned people allegedly operating as agents for kidney buyers within the community to leave Egume or face consequences. He also called on parents and residents to report suspicious activities involving young men.
If investigation proves the kidneys-for-motorcycles saga to be true, then it is a dangerous fad that must be contained before it spreads further. The dangers are just too searing.
A teenager or young adult who gives up a healthy kidney for relatively short-term financial gain could potentially be imperiled for the rest of his or her life. The immediate payment may be small compared with the potential cost of treating kidney disease decades later.
In the specific Kogi context where young men are suspectedly selling kidneys to buy motorcycles, it is an odeous trade-off. A motorcycle worth ₦2 million can be replaced; a lost kidney cannot.
However, according to medical experts, a person with one healthy kidney can often live a full life, but regular monitoring of blood pressure, urine protein, and kidney function (creatinine/eGFR) is important.
Medical experts identify long-term risks to heart disease include high blood pressure; protein leaking into the urine, which can be an early sign of kidney damage; reduced kidney function or chronic kidney disease in some people; a greater vulnerability if the remaining kidney is injured, infected, or affected by conditions such as diabetes or severe hypertension and in severe cases, kidney failure, which can require dialysis or another transplant.
Medical buffs warn that surgery itself also carries risks. If the kidney is removed in an unsafe or unregulated setting, there can be additional dangers such as severe bleeding, infection, damage to surrounding organs, blood clots, problems from anaesthesia, poor wound healing and inadequate follow-up care.
Similarly, there are documented cases of young women donating eggs and young men donating sperm for money. Societal pressure on childbearing often impels many childless couples to seek artificial reproductive assistance, what is popularly known as Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
And it is estimated that at least one in four Nigerian couples have one or more forms of fertility issues. With so many couples desiring children of their own, records reveal that female eggs are in high demand. So, there are legitimate reasons for egg donation.
Some young girls, however, do it because they desperately need money for survival. A 2022 study of 31 egg donors at a fertility facility in Anambra State found that 93.6% said money was their main motivation. Most were single, literate women, and 77.4% of those who were paid said the compensation was not worth what they went through.
One particularly striking investigation by a telivision medium profiled women who donated repeatedly. One woman, Esther, said she went into it because of the impelling need to support her younger siblings and mother after her father’s death. She was paid about ₦120,000 per donation and also received referral money when she brought other women into the programme.
Another woman, Joan, described egg donation as a way of helping an infertile woman while making money during a difficult period in her own life. At the time of that report, clinics were reportedly paying roughly ₦80,000–₦150,000 per egg-donation cycle.
A newspaper reported the case of a young woman who appeared to be under 20 and said she had donated her eggs twice, receiving ₦120,000 each time. She also said she received ₦20,000 for referring another woman who successfully donated.
The same investigation described the demand side as wealthy Nigerians seeking IVF treatment and donor eggs because of infertility.
There are, however, heart-rending cases of young women claiming that they were hoodwinked into having their eggs harvested. A 2026 Journal of African Law investigation examines the issue from a human-rights perspective and captures testimonies from Nigerian donors.
The journal describes a 20-year-old university student, identified as Iyanuoluwa, who said she donated eggs to raise money for tuition. According to the investigation, she underwent a procedure without adequate explanation and subsequently experienced prolonged bleeding and emotional distress.
Another donor, Celine, reportedly said she was promised ₦50,000 and underwent medical procedures without being adequately informed about the risks. The article also describes allegations involving two teenagers, aged 17 and 19, who were introduced to a fertility clinic and allegedly did not fully understand the procedures they underwent.
The distinction matters because egg donation itself, in some auspicious settings, can be a legitimate medical practice, but exploitation, inadequate informed consent and coercion are serious ethical issues.
Similarly, a newspaper reported the case of one Obi, a 21-year-old University of Lagos undergraduate, who said he became a regular sperm donor after seeing an advertisement at his school. He said he was paid around ₦200,000–₦250,000 a month and donated once or twice a week.
The same investigation reported that some clinics paid approximately ₦10,000–₦25,000 per visit, depending on the donor and his qualifications.
Another investigation described university students as an important source of both eggs and sperm for Nigeria’s fertility market. It reported payments ranging from approximately ₦20,000 to ₦50,000 or more, depending on the circumstances, clinic and donor characteristics.
A report similarly said in 2023 that Nigerian students constituted a large proportion of gamete donors and reported figures of roughly ₦100,000–₦250,000 per donation in some settings.
Researchers have specifically identified exploitation of egg donors, inadequate counselling and inadequate information as ethical concerns in Nigeria’s assisted-reproduction industry. A study of Nigerian fertility practitioners found that a majority supported the development of stronger regulatory guidelines and policies.
The exploitation angle and the scandalous practice of cashing in on the desperation, ignorance and naivety of underage girls to have their eggs harvested should particularly interest the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and other critical stakeholders.
The egg donation trafficking is a silent boom among undergraduates and secondary school girls, especially with the seismic level of economic deprivation in the country. The rabid manner some of the so-called fertility clinics go about the whole business is particularly debasing and medically grisly.
There have been stories of how many of these girls are often administered drugs that cause ovarian hyper stimulation in order to extract their eggs. Besides, many of them out of ignorance, greed and naivety are allegedly being lured with money to get their eggs harvested several times within a year with the adverse health implications.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that no woman should have her eggs harvested more than twice a year. The apex health agency also states that egg harvesting, just like blood donation, should not be traded for financial gains.
Medical experts say frequent egg harvesting in a year has its risks because each cycle involves hormone stimulation and an invasive retrieval procedure.
While it has not been established that repeated egg harvesting in the same year has links with infertility or cancer, the possible risks, according to a medical opinion, include ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), which can sometimes become serious.
It can also cause bleeding, infection or ovarian torsion from the retrieval procedure as well as abdominal pain, bloating and hormonal side effects.
Importantly, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine considers no more than six stimulation/retrieval cycles in a donor a prudent upper limit because risks can accumulate.
It is, however, disconcerting that while the demand for IVF, commonly known as ‘test-tube conception’, remains high, especially among the elite, there is still a dearth of regulations and policies for the assisted reproductive industry in the country.
For inexplicable reasons, this important health subsector has for long been overlooked by the government and experts in the field who should set standards.
Only Lagos, out of the 36 states in the country, has enacted a law to regulate IVF. Yet, abuse of the artificial reproductive assistance is not just a health issue; it is a social and ethical matter that deserves the attention of the authorities and industry experts.
Of course, already some practitioners in Nigeria have formed the Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH), which produced some ethical guidelines that should govern the practice of assisted conception. But the guidelines are being observed in the breach.
We, therefore, urge NAPTIP and allied agencies to move in and arrest the criminal dimension of the artificial reproductive industry by fishing out the unscrupulous fertility clinics and their desperate agents who are bastardizing an otherwise legitimate medical practice, by taking undue advantage of the desperation and greed of young, largely ignorant girls.
Then, the rest of the states should take a cue from Lagos and sanitize or standardize the industry for the sake of the law-abiding ART practitioners and their genuine patrons. Emerging standards, regulations and policies must henceforth be enforced to the letter by criminalizing default.
