BBNaija S10 Was Illegally Streamed Over 5M Times — MultiChoice Laments

Executive Head of Content and Channels, West Africa, MultiChoice Nigeria, Atinuke Ngozi Babatunde, has raised alarm over the booming digital piracy market in Nigeria, revealing that Season 10 of Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) was illegally streamed more than five million times.

Babatunde spoke on Friday at the 2025 Nigerian Entertainment Conference (NECLive) in Lagos, where creators, policymakers and industry leaders converged to discuss the theme: “Powering Africa Through Creative Enterprise.”

Describing the piracy numbers as a serious economic threat, Babatunde said illegal streaming is bleeding the entertainment industry and undermining thousands of jobs.

“This is not mischief; it’s theft. It is economic sabotage that must be stopped,” she said.

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She noted that Nigeria’s outdated copyright laws and weak cross-border protections have made enforcement difficult, adding that creative content producers are being outpaced by modern digital piracy networks.

“We need modern copyright laws, enforcement frameworks, and cross-border protections. Without that, creators will continue to lose revenue while digital thieves profit,” she added.

MultiChoice, in recent weeks, has led anti-piracy awareness walks across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt to educate the public about the dangers of illegal streaming and content theft.

Babatunde’s warning comes as the federal government ramps up anti-piracy efforts, following directives issued to the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to strengthen monitoring and clamp down on digital content theft.

In the past month, NCC enforcement teams have carried out coordinated raids on pirate IPTV operators and seized illegal streaming devices across major cities. The Ministry of Information and National Orientation also recently announced a new multi-agency task force to track cross-border piracy rings and prosecute distributors of illegal content.

Officials say the government is now prioritising digital piracy as a national economic threat, with plans to table amendments to Nigeria’s copyright laws to better address streaming-era violations.

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Babatunde urged African governments, creators, and media platforms to form a united front against piracy, stressing that the continent’s creative industry holds massive economic potential if properly protected.

“When creativity rises, the economy rises. When African stories travel, African industry grows. This is our moment not to dream but to build, not to wait but to act,” she said.

She added that safeguarding digital content is essential if Africa is to fully claim what she described as its “creative century”.

The call for action was echoed by industry leaders at NECLive, who warned that without urgent reforms, rising piracy could cripple Nigeria’s entertainment sector, one of the country’s largest non-oil revenue generators.

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