E-Business
Twitter Ban: Nigeria’s Once Booming Tech Community Now in Shock
The government’s sudden ban of Twitter could jeopardise one of the country’s most promising industries, according to Mail & Guardian.
Africa’s biggest startup story in 2020 was the acquisition, by US company Stripe, of Paystack — an electronic payments processor that was founded in Lagos in 2015.
Valued at about $200-million, it was a landmark deal for Nigeria’s booming tech community.
A hunt for more Paystacks has ensued among local and international investors. They are worried about missing out.
With broadband penetration rising from less than 20% five years ago to more than 40% since May 2020, Nigeria’s information and communications technology sector is the fastest growing in the country, rising 6.31% in the first quarter of 2021.
The importance of this sector is only increasing, given the negative economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Africa’s largest economy, and the pressing need to diversify away from oil revenues.
Such metrics, including the fact that 81% of Nigerian adults own cellphones, encourage investors to part with even more unprecedented million-dollar checks, like the $10-million raised by digital bank Kuda at seed stage last November.
The appetite and tolerance for tech enterprise in Africa’s most-populous country has never been so high.
But this burst of energy and innovation is facing a familiar foe: the Nigerian government.
Last week, the federal government banned Twitter — one of the biggest social-media platforms in the world. The ban came after Twitter deleted a tweet issued from President Muhammadu Buhari’s account, saying that it amounted to a threat of violence. Businesses and media organisations in Nigeria have been instructed to delete their Twitter accounts, and ordinary citizens risk arrest for using the app.
The Twitter ban comes just six months after another major shock to the local tech industry, when the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered banks to stop enabling cryptocurrency transactions.
Suddenly, Nigeria is losing its appeal for tech investors.
“The truth is that regulatory risk has been the chief concern for us investors for a while,” Tokunboh Ishmael, a former board chair at the Africa Venture Capital Association, told The Continent.
Through Alitheia Capital, an investment firm, she has helped to fund Nigerian startups, including Paga, MAX and Lidya. In each case, “regulatory risk has factored high in our risk matrix”.
For Nigerian startups, this means that they need to offer investors a higher return on their investment than in more stable markets, Ishmael said.
Tayo Oviosu, who founded Paga in 2009, says a handful of investors have mentioned regulatory risk as their reason for not investing in the mobile-payments company, but such occasions have been rare in the past.
“That said, all investors consider the macroeconomic situation of any country they invest in, particularly if investing in a regulated sector.”
Operating costs
The Twitter ban will not only make it hard for Nigerian tech companies to raise money; for some of them, it will also make it difficult to operate. With its estimated two million users in Nigeria, Twitter is an important platform for businesses.
Eloho Omame, founding chief executive of Endeavor Nigeria and co-founder of a new firm aiming to fund female-focused startups with $25 000 seed money, said Twitter has been “essential as a touchpoint” with the founders and startups it serves.
Her firm, FirstCheck Africa, is essentially a startup in need of a platform to tell its story and gain traction with the women who could found Africa’s next big thing. “A not-insignificant part of our investment pipeline relies on outreach on Twitter and a lot of our hiring is done via Twitter. The ban has disrupted all of that. None of the alternatives are as efficient.”
Twitter has become a customer-service-management platform for new startups looking to be lean and nimble. Part of the success of Piggyvest, a popular savings app, is that it went from zero to 450 users in a year with next to nothing spent on marketing, relying on Twitter for customer acquisition.
With the ban, startups have pushed notifications explaining that Twitter support is now deactivated.
An email from Fairmoney, a digital bank, offered a phone number, an email and a Facebook page as alternative customer-service channels. Risevest, a stock-trading app, included Instagram among its alternatives. Henry Mascot, founder of Curacel — which provides fraud-detection technology for insurance companies — says the company has had to hire a new team outside Nigeria to manage its Twitter feed. That means more spending.
Staying hopeful
Mascot says it’s too early to know how bad the effect of the ban will be. His investors, who helped Curacel raise $450 000 this March, are in for the long run, but he is concerned about the message to the broader ecosystem of investors.
Oviosu, the Paga chief executive, is optimistic and says investors will observe the Twitter ban as an isolated issue and won’t be deterred from the market. Victor Basta, managing partner of Magister Advisors, which has advised on multimillion-dollar deals in Africa, sees the negatives of a social-media ban but doesn’t expect spillovers to fundraising work. “We have multiple deals ongoing with Nigerian companies and we see no backlash from this step.”
But in the present, founders and investors agree that a continued pattern of arbitrary regulatory changes is sending the wrong signal to people considering Nigerian startups as a destination for their capital.
“A government that’s consistently hostile to technology sends a message that its economy is less credible as a destination for important future-focused investments of time and money,” Omame says. “We’re competing for talent and capital with ecosystems all over the world and we’re even further on the back foot.”
Dr Adebowale Adedokun, director-general, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), has reaffirmed the bureau’s commitment to data protection in Nigeria.
He disclosed this in a statement at the weekend by Zira Nagga, head of Public Relations, BPP, following a courtesy visit by a delegation from the National Data Protection Commission (NDPC).
Adedokun stressed that data protection is vital to Nigeria’s economy and development, particularly in areas such as demography, health, education, and other key sectors.
He emphasised that no country should leave its data unprotected, as it plays a crucial role in future planning and national development.
“Data governs the world. It is essential to technological progress and must be protected for a country or business to be taken seriously,” he said.
Adedokun described the visit, aimed at fostering partnership on data policy implementation and protection, as timely and aligned with national goals.
He said the BPP would collaborate closely with the NDPC to boost data development, capacity building, and enhance the procurement system.
“The BPP will support compliance as part of the ‘Nigeria First’ Policy, although it is not a core procurement eligibility requirement,” he explained.
He suggested a hybrid training model to help build strong capacity in data protection, privacy awareness, and policy understanding.
According to him, a dynamic training approach will reduce logistics costs and improve public confidence in data safety and privacy.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, CEO, and national commissioner, NDPC, praised Adedokun and the BPP for supporting data protection initiatives.
He said the partnership supports President Bola Tinubu’s vision and will strengthen data privacy across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
“The collaboration will create awareness and train BPP staff to ensure a firm grasp of data protection principles and policies,” he stated.
Olatunji said the NDPC would establish a working group to finalise a Memorandum of Understanding beneficial to both institutions.
He added that President Tinubu signed the NDPC into law on 12 June 2023 to uphold citizens’ rights and protect national and business data.
Olatunji also noted that strict legal measures were in place to enforce data protection and ensure full compliance nationwide.
Both agencies agreed to form a team to sign the MoU and focus on capacity building and data management in procurement and beyond.
President Bola Tinubu said that his administration has initiated a project to install fibre optic cables across the country, aimed at enhancing the socio-economic development of Nigeria.
His plans were contained in a speech he delivered at a joint session of the National Assembly in commemoration of Democracy Day on Thursday, June 12.
He said the fibre optic layout is part of other projects being embarked on.
“In addition, we have embarked on an ambitious project to lay fibre optic cables across the nation, a transformative step toward bridging the digital divide and fostering greater connectivity.
“This initiative promises not only to enhance the speed and reliability of internet access but also to revolutionise how businesses operate, how students learn, and how communities stay connected,” Tinubu stated.
He maintained that by extending this critical infrastructure, his government is empowering entrepreneurs, enabling digital education, and providing the tools for our youth to compete in a globalised world.
In a most recent report on Internet connectivity, The ICIR pointed out how Nigeria has faced setbacks in its deployment of fibre optic cables and needs a transformation.
The challenges revolve around vandalism, inadequate coordination between road construction and telecom infrastructure, and varying right-of-way (RoW) charges across states.
Among industry experts, these issues impact network outages, increase repair costs, and hinder broadband expansion efforts.
It has also further threatened the digital economy, leading to slower Internet speeds, dropped calls, and unreliable connectivity among others.
African startups raised more than $345 million across 65 deals in May, more than double the amount raised in the same period of last year, according to a report by Briter, a research and business intelligence firm.
The report disclosed that both the number of deals and participating companies declined, confirming a growing trend of fewer companies raising funds in larger sizes.
It said fintech attracted the highest share of funding in May, accounting for 34 percent of the total, while cleantech followed closely, driven by a debt deal from Sun King. The company raised $80 million (in local currency) to expand clean energy access in Nigeria.
“Equity remains the primary instrument in terms of total value. There’s no doubt about it; in fact, equity deals with disclosed amounts captured more than half of the total funding volume in May.
“However, debt financing is increasingly proving its weight. Although it accounted for only 8 percent of all deals, it represented 32 percent of the total funding, highlighting the typically larger size of debt transactions. With the rise of specialised vehicles targeting early-stage businesses, debt is becoming an increasingly important part of Africa’s innovation funding landscape,” it said.
Briter’s report added that grants continued to play a vital role in early-stage support, especially in the education technology (EdTech) sector. The Mastercard Foundation led the pack in grant activity, funding a new cohort of EdTech innovators in Nigeria and Kenya. Each selected startup is set to receive $100,000 in grant funding, in addition to mentorship and business development support.
Multilaterals also made a strong showing in May, it said. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a World Bank Group member, issued a $179.6 million guarantee to CleanTech firm KOKO Networks. The support will help scale its clean energy solutions across Kenya.
“This deal not only demonstrates growing international confidence in African climate ventures but also signals a promising pathway for other asset-intensive startups in clean cooking, agriculture, and renewable energy,” the report said.
From a geographic perspective, Egypt emerged as the continent’s fundraising powerhouse for the month, contributing 51 percent of all funding raised. The country recorded 12 deals across equity, debt, and bond instruments. Notably, FinTech platform MNT-Halan raised $50 million through a bond issuance, further illustrating the diversification of capital-raising mechanisms in the region.
Outside Egypt, funding was distributed across Africa’s three other key markets, which are Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, with limited activity recorded in countries such as Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, and Uganda, each registering between one and three deals.
In terms of exits, the African tech landscape continues to mature. Three companies—Baobab+, Qardy, and Shopa—were acquired in May, bringing the total number of exits this year to 22. This already surpasses last year’s count for the same period. Qardy was acquired by Catalyst Partners Middle East (CPME) in a disclosed deal valued at $23 million, the report added.
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