Gabon’s New Law Makes All Social Media Users Traceable
Gabon enacted a law ending online anonymity, forcing social‑media users to provide full personal details and imposing fines up to $89,000 for violations. In Lagos, emergency responders are using virtual‑reality simulations of the Lekki‑Ikoyi Bridge to practice high‑risk incidents without physical danger. Kenya's Revenue Authority faces renewed scrutiny after a bribery scheme involving the sale of tax‑compliance certificates, prompting recoveries of millions but deepening public distrust.
From Holiday Lessons to Frontend Leadership: How Abdulqudus Abubakre Learned to Build for Real Users
Abdulqudus Abubakre’s path began with a holiday web‑design lesson and evolved into a senior frontend leadership role, where he stresses that the frontend is the first business touchpoint for users. He highlights how scaling products for millions amplifies the importance...
How MacTay Is Using Virtual Reality to Train Emergency Services Professionals in Lagos
MacTay has trained more than 300 emergency‑service professionals in Lagos using virtual‑reality goggles that simulate a high‑risk accident on the Lekki‑Ikoyi bridge. The VR platform, originally built for STEM education, now offers repeatable, risk‑free practice for first responders, building muscle...
Nollywood Needs to Get on the Microdrama Train Now
Microdramas are exploding worldwide, with China’s revenue soaring from $500 million in 2021 to $7 billion in 2024 and global earnings projected at $9.5 billion by 2030. The United States alone generated $800 million in 2024, while Nigeria’s Nollywood cinema made a modest $10 million...
Meta Contests $25,000 Falana Judgment, Citing Jurisdictional Flaws
Meta has filed an appeal against a Lagos High Court judgment that ordered the company to pay $25,000 in damages to Nigerian lawyer Femi Falana for alleged privacy violations. The appeal argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction under Nigeria’s...
Nigerian Creators Are Turning to Rage-Bait to Cash in on X
X’s Creator Ads Revenue Sharing program pays roughly $8.50 per million verified impressions, prompting many Nigerian creators to adopt rage‑bait tactics that spark angry replies and inflate impression counts. By posting provocative takes on marriage, tribalism and trending news, they aim...
OPay Named Nigeria’s Most Trusted Digital Financial Company at 2026 ISO Awards
OPay was named the Most Trusted Quality Mobile Money and Digital Financial Services Company of the Year at the 2026 ISO World Corporate Brand of the Year Awards in Lagos. The accolade was based on a 4.6 online referrer rating...
GiriToday CEO Wale Ayantoye Selected as Semafor World Economy Principal
GiriToday founder and CEO Wale Ayantoye has been appointed a Principal of the Semafor World Economy, a curated community of more than 400 global CEOs, policymakers and investors. The role grants him participation in the annual convening in Washington, D.C., where...
From Medical Ambitions to AI: The Making of a Machine Learning Expert
Gift Ojeabulu grew up in Lagos cyber cafés, pivoted from a failed medical track to self‑taught computer science, and entered AI through a 2018 bootcamp. He progressed from building an Android app to winning a national Best AI Poster award,...
The Quiet Shift: Why Northern Nigeria’s Developer Communities Could Reshape Africa’s AI Talent Map
Africa’s AI narrative has long centered on Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo and Cape Town, but a quiet ecosystem is emerging in Northern Nigeria. Federal universities such as Ahmadu Bello churn out large engineering cohorts, while developer hubs in Jos, Kaduna and...
Nigerian Telcos Lost ₦2.3 Billion Worth of Generators to Theft in 2025
Nigerian telecom operators reported the theft of 656 generators and battery systems in 2025, amounting to roughly ₦2.3 billion (about $5 million). Each 15 kVA generator is valued at around ₦3.5 million ($7,600), and the loss forces base stations to go offline, degrading voice...
I Had 15 Years of Experience, but I Still Had to Start over – Nigerian Lady Building Marketplace and Magazine...
Nigerian media veteran Abiodun Adetu relocated to Canada and discovered her 15‑year career didn’t translate into local credentials, prompting her to complete a digital‑marketing course. She leveraged that experience to launch Naija Market Day, a traveling Nigerian‑style marketplace now operating...
Lending to Nigeria’s SMEs Is Hard. Nomba Thinks There’s a Better Way
Nomba announced that its 18‑month partnership with Globus Bank generated roughly $26.6 million in loans to Nigerian SMEs, while keeping the non‑performing loan ratio below 1 %. The fintech’s underwriting relies on real‑time payment flows rather than traditional audited statements, and it...
Meet Nigerian Innovator Building STEM Platform to Support Less-Priviliged African Kids
Nsisong Okon, a Nigerian‑born software engineer now based in Portugal, co‑founded Fancybox and its education arm STEM4Kiddo. The platform delivers interactive STEM lessons to primary‑school children across emerging markets, offering a paid subscription that’s free for beneficiaries of his NGO....
Big Bonus for MTN Nigeria CEO
MTN Group awarded its Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola a $335,000 stock bonus tied to long‑term performance, part of a $9.5 million share pool for senior leaders. The compensation model aligns executive pay with shareholder returns, cash flow and ESG targets as...
This Startup Is Building Access to Global Work From Africa
Totlesoft, an AI‑powered platform launched in 2024, aims to give African talent unified access to global remote work, affiliate sales and research gigs. The service bundles job micro‑tasks, a marketplace with an affiliate engine, and a survey research tool into...
Madica Backs Three Startups, Launches Fundraising Guide for First-Time Founders
Madica, a pre‑seed programme for African startups, announced a $600,000 investment across three new companies—Kilimo Fresh, Hakimu, and Biovana—each receiving up to $200,000 and entry into an 18‑month mentorship and network program. The investments target Tanzania, Kenya, and Nigeria, extending...
Egypt to Regulate Social Media for Minors with Special SIM
Egypt’s telecom regulator will roll out special SIM cards for minors within 60 days, embedding app and content restrictions at the network level. In Nigeria, the South East Development Commission aims to build a $200 billion economy by 2035, launching a...
Liberia’s ID Rollout Stalled by $1.7M Debt
Liberia’s government still owes roughly $1.7 million to a foreign tech contractor, leaving the national ID system locked and preventing millions from accessing banking, telecom and public services. In Nigeria, AI‑driven fintech startup Xara has turned WhatsApp into a chat‑based banking...
Introducing EGF: An Open File Format for Educational Games
An open file format called Educational Game Format (EGF) was released on Zenodo in November 2025 to simplify creation and distribution of educational video games, especially for Africa’s growing edtech market. Developed by the founder of ZakiGames, EGF packages content,...
DYQUE Energy Launches Mega Dealership Programme to Unlock Billion-Naira Solar Projects
DYQUE Energy unveiled its Mega Dealership Programme at the Business Summit 2026 in Lagos, a four‑tier model that links national distributors, mega dealers, EPC partners and the company’s sales force to streamline large‑scale solar projects. The company pledged $625,000 for...
This Nigerian Founder Got an Offer From Elon Musk’s xAI After His AI Startup Went Viral
Nigerian entrepreneur Sulaiman Adewale’s AI‑driven banking assistant Xara, built on WhatsApp, has attracted 45,000 users and processed about $5 million in transactions within ten months. The platform lets users query spending and schedule payments through natural‑language chat, using a fine‑tuned large...
Spiro Expands Electric Mobility in Ogun State with 1,000 New Bikes
Spiro, Africa’s leading electric‑mobility provider, launched 1,000 new electric bikes in Ogun State, Nigeria, in a ceremony attended by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Dapo Abiodun. The rollout leverages Spiro’s battery‑swapping technology to offer a low‑cost alternative to fuel‑powered transport....
MTN Completes MoMo Separation in Ghana
MTN Ghana finalized the spin‑off of its mobile‑money platform on 31 March 2026, merging MobileMoney Ltd with the newly formed MobileMoney Fintech Ltd. The restructuring satisfies Ghana’s Payment Systems and Services Act, which mandates financial services be housed in separate entities. The...
How This Nigerian Lady Went From Studying Communication to Starting as a Secretary. Now, She’s an Executive at a Logistics...
Theresa “Thessy” Nwaubani rose from a secretary to head of growth and strategy at Enviable Group, a Nigerian logistics firm, after leveraging a communication arts degree and early curiosity about computers. Her five‑year tenure illustrates how internal talent pipelines can...
How Nigeria’s CDMA Operators Built a Market, Then Lost It
Nigeria’s early CDMA operators—Multilinks, Starcomms, Visafone and others—pioneered private mobile services in the late 1990s, reaching up to three million subscribers at peak. Their growth was stunted by regional licences that barred nationwide expansion, while GSM rivals received national licences...
Nigerian Founder Launches ADT, a New AI Model for Cyber Defense
Glemad unveiled Autonomous Defence Transformers (ADT), the first frontier‑scale AI models built from the ground up for security reasoning and autonomous cyber defence. The PulseADT service now safeguards over 680,000 assets, handling 1.8 million security events per second, and delivers a...
From Chaos to Control: How Verx Is Helping African Businesses Run Smarter, Faster, and More Profitably
Verx, an all‑in‑one SaaS platform built by Omoniyi Owoeye’s team at Worldest Dinero Services, targets African SMEs plagued by fragmented tools and manual processes. It consolidates sales, finance, marketing, compliance and AI‑driven analytics into a single dashboard, offering automated tax,...
Ghana Turns National ID Into Payment Tool
Ghana has embedded a digital wallet into its national ID, the Ghana Card, allowing online, in‑store, ATM and cross‑border payments in over 200 countries via the MyCitizens app or USSD *402#. The move targets the country’s low 0.6% credit‑card penetration...
Introducing KeshPay: A New Crypto-to-Naira Solution for West Africa
Nigerian entrepreneur Ndulue Kenechukwu has launched KeshPay, a crypto‑to‑naira conversion platform aimed at streamlining digital‑asset transactions across West Africa. The service tackles persistent peer‑to‑peer trading issues by offering a controlled environment that speeds up exchanges and reduces dispute risk. In...
FinCode: 10 Years of Building the Infrastructure Behind Africa’s Fintech Growth
FinCode, a stealth fintech infrastructure firm in Africa, celebrates ten years and is now opening its full‑stack platform to a broader market. The company built core rails—including payment switching, remittance‑as‑a‑service, digital wallets, lending and identity management—through its Songhai Exchange API...
Cascador Opens 2026 ScaleUp Program for Nigeria’s Growth-Stage Founders
Cascador has opened applications for its 2026 ScaleUp Program, a 12‑week initiative that will select 12 growth‑stage founders across Nigeria’s tech and real‑economy sectors. The program blends mentorship, tailored assessments and non‑dilutive financing, leveraging a partnership with Sterling Bank that...
Meta’s Ray-Ban Glasses Face Investigation in Kenya
Kenya's data protection authority launched an investigation into Meta's Ray‑Ban smart glasses over allegations that footage, including sensitive personal moments, is reviewed by human contractors, raising privacy concerns echoed in the US and UK. In Nigeria, persistent naira volatility—fluctuating around...
USD-Backed Stablecoins Fuel Nigeria’s Trade Amid FX Uncertainty
Fintech Verto’s CEO Ola Oyetayo says Nigeria’s recent naira volatility has pushed businesses toward USD‑backed stablecoins for cross‑border trade. Traditional banking liquidity dried up, prompting payment providers to use mixed local and global pools and dynamic pricing. The Central Bank...
Novastar Ventures Closes $147 Million Third Fund to Drive Pan-African Ambitions
Novastar Ventures closed its third fund, the Africa People and Planet Fund III, at $147 million, targeting climate‑focused and impact‑driven startups across Africa. Japanese investors such as SBI Holdings, SMBC, Mitsubishi and JICA joined returning partners like Norfund and British International Investment....
Most Powerful Women in West African Fintech
A new profile highlights ten women shaping West African fintech, from Visa’s SVP Aminata Kane steering a $1 billion investment to PiggyVest COO Odunayo Eweniyi growing a platform with 4.5 million users. Leaders such as Kemi Okunsanya at Hydrogen have processed roughly...
Wysemarket Lets African Users Forecast Real-World Outcomes, Bringing Prediction Markets to a New Generation of Digital Participants.
Wysemarket has launched Africa’s first dedicated prediction‑market platform, letting users trade outcomes on economics, politics, sports and entertainment. The mobile‑first service offers low‑latency access across varied network conditions and settles results instantly. By rewarding accurate forecasts, the platform turns collective...
Starlink to Appeal Namibia Licence Rejection
Starlink will appeal Namibia's telecom regulator decision that rejected its licence and spectrum access because the company is fully foreign‑owned, violating the country's 51% local‑ownership rule. Nigeria's communications authority has mandated that telcos compensate customers with airtime credits when service...
Nigeria Awards ₦2.25 Billion in Grants to Student-Founded Ventures
Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education awarded ₦2.25 billion (about $4.9 million) in equity‑free grants to 45 student‑founded ventures, each eligible for up to ₦50 million (~$109,000). The Student Venture Capital Grant Bootcamp attracted over 30,000 applications from more than 400 tertiary institutions, underscoring...
Africa’s Industrial Growth Will Be Built on Cybersecurity
Africa’s industrial cybersecurity market is projected to grow from $680 million in 2025 to $1.44 billion by 2031, underscoring rapid digitisation across oil, gas, mining and power sectors. These critical industries are adopting advanced automation faster than they are securing legacy control...
Progress Ochuko Eyaadah Is Building the Blockchain Infrastructure Africa’s Payments Ecosystem Deserves and Teaching Women to Do the Same
Progress Ochuko Eyaadah, a senior blockchain engineer at Toyow and developer‑relations mentor at Women in DeFi, is designing Africa‑focused blockchain frameworks that tokenise real‑world assets and link fiat with crypto. Her work on platforms like Toyow and Sytemap creates transparent,...
NCC Orders Telcos to Compensate Users for Poor Network Service
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has ordered mobile network operators to compensate subscribers with airtime credits when service quality falls below prescribed standards. Compensation will be calculated based on users' average spending and the specific locations of outages, and must...
South Africa’s Taxman Is Coming for Online Earners
South Africa’s revenue service (SARS) is intensifying efforts to identify and tax online earners, from influencers to crypto traders, using platform data and advanced analytics. The crackdown arrives as more Africans generate income outside traditional employment, raising compliance challenges for...
JujuKraft Launches Unified Workspace to Simplify Screenwriting Workflows
Jujukraft, co‑founded by Nigerian actress Mayowa Aderoju, launched an all‑in‑one screenwriting platform that merges outlining, formatting, collaboration and revision tools into a single cloud‑based workspace. The service offers visual beat‑mapping, a distraction‑free editor, seamless import of FDX, Fountain and PDF...
CODM X Infinix NOTE 60 Series
Infinix has teamed up with Call of Duty: Mobile to turn its newly launched NOTE Edge and NOTE 60 series into optimized gaming devices for emerging markets such as Latin America, Brazil, India, and Africa. The partnership delivers 120 FPS performance, JBL‑tuned...
₦3 Billion and No Investors: How Fixr Is Rewriting Service Delivery
Fixr, a Lagos‑based engineering services firm, has re‑engineered its model from a marketplace to a full‑time contractor, employing about 400 salaried technicians and operating dark‑store warehouses across Nigeria, Ghana and Nairobi. The company processed roughly ₦5 billion (≈$3.3 million) in renewable‑energy financing...
After Years of Trying, Moniepoint Breaks Into Kenya with Sumac Acquisition
Moniepoint has secured a foothold in Kenya by acquiring a 78% stake in Sumac Microfinance Bank, gaining an immediate deposit‑taking licence. The acquisition follows a stalled attempt to buy Kopo Kopo and comes days after Moniepoint bought Nigerian restaurant‑software firm...
The Next Phase of AI for Nigerian Businesses: From Experimentation to Operational Advantage
Nigerian businesses are rapidly embracing AI, with 88% of adults using chatbots and the market projected to grow to $4.64 billion by 2030 at a 27% CAGR. Most firms remain in a pilot phase, treating AI like isolated tools rather than...
One Man’s Trash, Another Man’s Revenue: Inside the Startup Cleaning up Nigeria
Nigeria produces more than 30 million tonnes of waste each year, overwhelming municipal services. Ecobarter, a tech‑enabled social enterprise founded in 2018, pays households and businesses for recyclable and organic waste, using a mobile app to schedule pickups, track collections, and...
Kenya Moves to Phase Out Low-End Phones
Kenya announced a regulatory phase‑out of low‑end phones that lack USB‑Type‑C ports, forcing manufacturers to adopt the newer charging standard. The move aims to streamline technology, improve charging efficiency, and curb e‑waste, but may raise entry‑level device prices for low‑income...