TikTok’s Nigeria monetisation gap puts creators at a global disadvantage, expert says

TikTok’s decision to exclude Nigeria from its rewards programme is putting one of Africa’s biggest creator communities at a disadvantage, a leading digital governance expert has said.

Tech policy lawyer and Johnson & Wilner founding partner Basil Udotai said TikTok needs to clarify what is preventing Nigeria from joining the list of eligible countries, but structural challenges on the government side are also slowing progress.

Speaking to The Daily Influence, he said Nigeria has never formally engaged TikTok on the requirements for inclusion, creating a gap that “keeps creators locked out of monetisation even when they are driving culture on the platform”.

“Nigeria has the talent, the numbers and the cultural influence,” he said. “However, I am not aware that the Nigerian government has ever formally approached TikTok to ask the basic questions - why is Nigeria excluded? What specific compliance or verification concerns exist? What must be addressed on our side? And what timeline is realistic for inclusion?”

TikTok’s monetisation systems rely on strict eligibility criteria as the platform formalises payouts. Under the Creator Rewards Programme, eligible accounts must meet audience thresholds and reside in an approved country. TikTok’s Creator Academy notes that payments are tied to “engagement, originality, and viewer value” and subject to regional availability. So far, only three African countries - South Africa, Egypt and Morocco - are included. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Udotai said platform decisions on monetisation are “driven by a mix of factors - risk profiling, economic projections, verification systems, payment infrastructure and internal readiness.” In the absence of coordinated engagement, he added, Nigeria’s regulatory interests, creators' needs and TikTok’s internal frameworks often move in different directions. “That misalignment alone can keep a country outside monetization lists, even when it is one of the largest creator markets on the continent.”

The implications extend beyond Nigeria. African creators play an outsized role in shaping global culture on TikTok, yet many remain locked out of the monetisation rails available to creators in Europe, the US and parts of Asia. Some startups are responding to this gap directly. As previously reported by The Daily Influence, Nigerian platform Endow has launched a financing model for creator teams after identifying inconsistent platform monetisation as a major barrier to growth.

The gap has become particularly visible as Nigeria positions its creative economy as a global growth engine. In August, the Federal Government announced plans to add $100 billion to GDP by 2030, fuelled by expanded investment in arts, culture, tourism and the wider creative sector. The strategy includes a $200 million Creative Economy Development Fund, a proposed $1 billion Creative and Tourism Infrastructure Corporation, and major projects such as the Lagos Arena and Abuja Creative City. But the country’s fastest-growing creative segment – digital creators – remains excluded from one of the most influential monetisation ecosystems in the world.

Udotai warns that assigning responsibility for the issue to a single ministry oversimplifies the problem. “This is not a narrow technical matter,” he said. “It is a digital-economy coordination problem, and Nigeria does not yet have the kind of inter-agency structure required to manage issues of this nature.”

He said Nigeria’s absence from TikTok’s monetisation map is ultimately the product of three structural weaknesses: unclear regulatory ownership, unreliable payout pathways and a fragmented identity-verification system that platforms cannot easily plug into. Together, these create an environment where platforms struggle to verify users or guarantee stable payments.

“There is no single agency responsible for creator monetization or digital-work policy. The space is ungoverned, leaving creators without institutional support and platforms without a clear government counterpart,” he said. Udotai noted that Nigeria has the tools - NIN, BVN, SIM-NIN linkage - but no harmonized authentication proof onboarding framework that platforms can rely on.

For millions of young Nigerians, it is a clear contradiction: a country with global creative-economy ambitions, yet whose creators remain locked out of the monetisation systems that underpin that future.