The datasets consist of quantitative data from 21,937 higher education students from 18 institutions in Nigeria. It also contains 3,108 data points from staff of the same institutions. The data describe the intention of the staff and the students to use internal whistleblowing mechanisms to report sexual violence cases. Data on the attitude of the participants towards internal whistleblowing, their subjective norms, and their self-efficacy are also contained in the datasets. The qualitative data describe the sexual violence reporting systems available in the institutions, their preferred whistleblowing strategies, the protection of whistleblowers, and recommendations for the effectiveness of internal whistleblowing mechanisms for sexual violence. However, due to the sensitivity of the data, the qualitative dataset will only be made available on request. Added to these datasets are the instruments that were used to collect data from the participants.