TL;DR: The Great Nigerian X Payout Freeze
- The News: Between February 10–14, 2026, X (formerly Twitter) paused payouts for an estimated 80% to 90% of monetised Nigerian accounts [1, 3].
- The Trigger: A viral ₦3,000 monetization course (linked to creators like @SirDavidBent) allegedly taught thousands of users how to “game” the system using engagement pods and reply farming [2, 3].
- The Technical Shift: In January 2026, X moved to a “Verified Home Timeline Impressions” model. This means only real views on the main feed from Premium users count—making the old “Reply Guy” tactics taught in the course an instant red flag for AI-driven Platform Manipulation filters [3, 4].
- The Result: Accounts showing identical, coordinated patterns have seen their dashboards hit $0.00 or “Suspended” as X enforces its new 2026 anti-spam protocols [1, 4].
- Bottom Line: The era of “hacking” X payouts in Nigeria is over; the platform is now strictly rewarding original, high-quality content over “engagement farming”
