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On Nigerian Twitter, now X, a growing group of young men have dedicated their time, content, and entire personalities to tearing women down.
They are called incels. The word incel, short for involuntarily celibate, was coined in 1997 by a woman named Alana, who created an online community to support men and women struggling to form romantic relationships. Her intention was healing, but what grew from it, especially in the hands of men online, is a global digital subculture steeped in misogyny, entitlement, and hate.
In Nigeria, this incel ideology quietly rooted itself in the X algorithm and itās expressed through āalpha maleā discourse, where young men proclaim themselves leaders of the sexual hierarchy, often by denigrating women.
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And all of this is happening in a country where one woman is killed every 49 hours. According to DOHS Cares Foundation, 88 Nigerian women have been killed between January and June 2025, and these are just the known cases.
It may have started as Patriarchy FC, "a joke" in 2020, but today, it has evolved into something far more sinister. A core group of male influencers have positioned themselves as captains of this "club" by building clout from consistently mocking, silencing, and gaslighting women online.
Several influencers have racked up thousands of followers, largely from their hot takes that shame feminists, ridicule single mothers, and mock women for having sexual autonomy or economic independence, and their fan bases cheer them on.
READ ALSO: Femicide in Nigeria: 88 Women killed in just 6 months
These influencers and their communities have waged war on the word feminist, turning it into a digital slur. A woman who calls for equity is labelled bitter, ugly, fat, jobless, or an attention seeker. Even when women speak up about threats to their safety or call for an end to gender-based violence, they are mocked, and the male perpetrators are defended.
Most recently, the toxic masculinity on Nigerian Twitter took a dark turn in the case involving popular philanthropist Asherkine. After he splurged on a female student, a faction of Nigerian Twitter men, without evidence, accused the girl of dumping/denying her boyfriend over it.
An unknown individual went as far as using AI to generate a fake photo of the girl with some guy whose face was covered with an emoji. The post went viral. The girl had to release a video denying the boyfriend narrative, and further investigations revealed the entire story was fabricated. Eventually, the boy behind the lie issued a public apology.
But the damage had been done. A womanās character had been dragged online, her dignity questioned, all because a group of men wanted engagement, clout, and laughs. To what end? For virality? For retweets? For a moment of Twitter fame?
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Whatās terrifying is not just that these young men exist, but that theyāre multiplying. And the more we excuse their behaviour as just online banter, the more emboldened they become. We cannot keep telling men to āimagine if it were your sisterā before they show empathy. Whether or not she is related to you, every woman deserves safety, dignity, and respect. Period.
If you're a man reading this, you have a choice. You can either become part of the machinery that continues to devalue women, or you can choose to protect the women in your life. Because the scariest thing isnāt that 88 women have been killed in six months. Itās that the next one could already be marked, and the internet will find a way to blame her, too.
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