Bhluemountain is effective, reliable, and easy to work with. Schedule a free consultation and we’ll show you why we were named one of the top IT firms in Nigeria
start Now
We are a team of top-accredited professionals who are unceasingly committed to delivering trailblazing solutions that ensure your maximum productivity. We help our customers build the core foundation for a successful and secure digital transformation journey
Quality is at the heart of everything we do, and we continuously challenge ourselves to improve our services to meet or exceed the needs and expectations of our customers, while always complying with regulations and specifications.
Whilst we have a big smile on our faces about our recognition, we never forget that our team and our clients work together as one, so thank you for all of your support.
Together with our team of accredited experts, we assist businesses in navigating their current IT estates and digital future through informed and cost-saving IT models.
At Bhluemountain we help small and large enterprises, run their mission-critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private and hybrid clouds. We deploy our technology solutions and services to enable businesses drive performance, competitiveness, and customer experience.
Whatever your industry area, we provide full-spectrum IT support services to help you meet changing business needs.
Effective Cloud Solutions and strategies that help you drive overall efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Gain key insights from data to drive impactful outcomes for strategic objectives.
Technology and industry consulting expertise to help you drive your digital transformation journey.
Travellers passing through Nigeria’s major international airports will now enjoy one hour of free high-speed internet, following a new partnership between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and MTN Nigeria, the country’s biggest telco. The service, which began quietly in December, is already live at Terminal 2 of Murtala Muhammed International Airport Terminal 2 in Lagos and at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, a FAAN spokesperson told TechCabal. Travellers can connect without entering a password. “It has been on since December; what we did today was a formal launch of the initiative,” the spokesperson said. FAAN said the service will soon expand to Port Harcourt International Airport, Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu, and the new temporary terminal at MMIA. Providing free high-speed internet at Nigeria’s busiest airports is a long-overdue change in how the country treats digital infrastructure in public spaces. Earlier efforts to offer reliable airport Wi-Fi were inconsistent, poorly funded, or derailed by maintenance challenges. A notable example was the partnership between Globacom and FAAN to deploy Wi-Fi across 22 airports, which collapsed in 2015. Travellers were often left with costly roaming options or unreliable connections. “In today’s connected world, access to reliable internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity,” said FAAN Managing Director/Chief Executive, Olubunmi Kuku. “We are pleased to offer this value-added service to our passengers, making their travel experience easier and more productive.” The move is part of a broader push to bring Nigeria’s airports in line with global expectations, where fast, reliable Wi-Fi has become a standard passenger amenity. The IATA 2025 Global Passenger Survey shows how essential connectivity has become: 78% of travellers now expect to use their smartphones for every step of the airport journey, from booking and digital identification to baggage tracking. “Airports are gateways to nations, and by providing free, high-speed Wi-Fi at our major international airports, we are enhancing convenience for travellers,” MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola said.
Read MoreTable of contents Algeria Benin Burundi Cameroon Chad Comoros Congo, Republic of (Brazzaville) Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Eswatini Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Mali Mauritania Mauritius Mozambique Nigeria Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia & Somaliland South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Togo Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Africa has 54 countries, or 55 if you count the member states of the African Union. At some point, about 34 of them have imposed a social media ban or a full internet shutdown that disrupted social media access. As internet access expanded across the continent, social media became central to business, public debate, and political action. It also became a powerful tool for organising protests, exposing misconduct, and challenging those in power. In response, many governments turned to social media bans and internet shutdowns to control information and limit mobilisation. The modern wave of shutdowns gained global attention during the 2011 Arab Spring, when Egypt cut internet access to disrupt protests. Since then, at least 30 African countries have enforced some type of restriction. According to a 2024 report by Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition, 21 shutdowns were recorded across 15 countries in 2024 alone. Governments often introduce these bans during elections, protests, or conflict. They usually cite misinformation or national security. Human rights groups argue that the goal is often to control information and limit scrutiny. The impact is heavy. Economies lose billions of dollars in trade and investment. People lose access to services and communication, and trust in institutions declines. Regional courts such as the ECOWAS Court of Justice have ruled that shutdowns violate freedom of expression. As of February 2026, several countries still maintain active or repeated bans. Here are the 33 African countries that have banned social media at some point. 33 African countries that have banned social media 1. Algeria Algeria has repeatedly restricted social media, mainly during national secondary school exams and at key political moments. When the ban was put in place: Since at least 2016, the government has cut access to Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp for several hours each day during the baccalaureate exams. In June 2019, access was cut at 2:15 p.m. WAT to stop leaked exam papers from spreading. In September 2020, during protests against the administration, network data showed major internet disruptions that pushed much of the country offline for several hours after social media apps were restricted. Why it was put in place: For exams, the goal was to protect academic integrity and stop leaks. For protests, the government said it was preventing “misleading information” and protecting the “sanctity of national institutions”. Outcome of the ban: Exam shutdowns were temporary and lifted once testing ended. Political restrictions weakened the coordination of the “Hirak” protest movement. Repeated disruptions have slowed digital commerce growth, prompting many users to turn to VPNs. Other details: According to the 2024 report by Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition, at least 10 exam-related shutdowns occurred across the Middle East and North Africa in one year. 2. Benin Benin enforced a major social media and internet blackout during its 2019 parliamentary elections. When the ban was put in place: On April 28, 2019, access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber was blocked around midnight. At 12:00 p.m. (noon) WAT, a full internet cutoff followed and lasted about 15 hours. Why it was put in place: The election was highly tense, with opposition parties barred from contesting. Authorities said the shutdown was needed for the “preservation of peace and social tranquillity.”. Outcome of the ban: Journalists, human rights defenders, and election observers could not report on polling issues or the use of force against protesters. The democratic process was heavily affected. When it was lifted: Internet access returned on the morning of April 29, 2019, after polls closed. Partial disruptions happened again on May 1, 2019, during violent clashes over the results. Other details: This event marked a shift in Benin’s democratic reputation, placing it among African countries that use digital restrictions during elections. 3. Burundi Burundi restricted social media during its general elections and later protests. When the ban was put in place: On May 20, 2020, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube were blocked throughout the morning of the election. In 2024, the country faced more internet disruptions during protests. Why it was put in place: The government said it wanted to maintain public order and stop the spread of “misinformation” during the first transfer of power in 15 years after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s long rule. Outcome of the ban: Opposition groups and civil society could not monitor the election process in real time. When it was lifted: Access was restored shortly after the election results were announced. Other details: Even after the ban ended, the media space remained highly restrictive. 4. Cameroon Cameroon carried out one of the longest shutdowns in Africa. When the ban was put in place: In January 2017, the government shut down the internet in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions for 93 days after protests by lawyers and teachers. Why it was put in place: Authorities sought to disrupt coordination among the Anglophone Consortium and the “Ghost Town” strikes, which called for secession or federalism. Outcome of the ban: Businesses in “Silicon Mountain” in Buea suffered, distance learners lost access, and the 20% Anglophone minority felt more isolated. According to a digital advocacy group, Advocacy Assembly, the shutdown cost about $2.5 million. When it was lifted: Internet access returned on April 20, 2017, after global pressure and the #BringBackOurInternet campaign. Other details: Later in 2017, WhatsApp and Facebook were throttled again for over 150 days during new protests. As of September 2025, separatists still use social media, while the government describes it as a “new form of terrorism” and keeps strong digital controls. 5. Chad Chad has enforced some of the longest social media bans on the continent. When the ban was put in place: In March 2018, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube were blocked
Read MoreThere is a question Jennifer Adebisi has answered more times than she can count. It comes from investors, mostly, and it goes something like this: Are you building a tech company or a food company? The answer, she will tell you, is both. But that answer, she has learned, is the problem. “Food tech is too operational for Software as a Service (SaaS) investors,” she says. “But it is too tech-driven for traditional hospitality capital.” Adebisi sits in the gap between them, building something that does not fit neatly into either world. This is not a small problem. It shapes everything: how she raises money, how she is valued, how fast she can grow. And it is a problem, she argues, that reveals something broken about how Nigeria’s tech ecosystem thinks about consumer businesses. From Uli to the professional kitchen Adebisi came to technology through food, not the other way around. She grew up partly with her grandmother in Uli, Anambra State, in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria, who farmed her own food and cooked everything from scratch. That early life shaped a deep belief in food as something beyond fuel for the body. “Food is nourishment, food is medicine, food is comfort,” she says. “Nothing is more personal.” In 2017, Adebisi graduated from Red Dish Chronicles Culinary School, a culinary school in Lagos and Abuja, and then moved to a Head Chef position at Sabor Lagos, a casual restaurant in the heart of Lagos, the following year. During her time as a head chef, competitors attempted to poach her, she says: “They’d come to me and ask if I knew someone who was as good as me, and I got an idea, to create a service to link people looking for chefs and the chefs themselves. Uche and I called it Prime Chef.” Prime Chef didn’t get off the ground at that stage due to problems surrounding the technical side of launching, but that was Adebisi’s first foray into technology. In 2021, Adebisi became Chief Culinary Officer and co-founder at FoodCourt, a YC-backed food tech startup, handling operations and quality control on the food end of the business. The operations side of that business exposed her, for the first time, to what technology could actually do. Not as a glamorous thing, but as a practical one. “Yes, you can build a nice app,” she says. “But the app is just the front. The real work exists in the operations. That is where your money lives.” Adebisi and her business partner, Uche Banye, left FoodCourt in July 2023. When they cofounded Happy Belly in September 2023, they brought that conviction with them. They were, by their own description, non-technical founders. They had no engineering background. But they knew exactly what they needed the technology to do because they had spent years inside the operations that the technology was supposed to serve. Happy Belly is a customer-facing app; a proprietary kitchen management system called Kina; a logistics app for riders; a vendor management network; a dark kitchen; and, soon, a WhatsApp ordering channel. Adebisi says she built each piece out of necessity because the technology tools available in the market did not solve the actual problems she was facing. “There is hardly any part of our operation that we do not have in hand,” she says. The funding gap nobody names When Adebisi pitches Happy Belly to investors, she runs into a version of the same wall from different directions. SaaS investors look at her unit economics and see capital expenditure: dark kitchens, equipment, riders, and packaging. They compare her to global food delivery platforms and ask why her growth does not look like DoorDash. “Local infrastructure costs are not being priced into their expectations,” she says. Traditional hospitality investors, on the other hand, do not quite follow the technology story. They understand restaurants. They do not understand why a food business needs to build its own kitchen operating system, or what the long-term value of proprietary logistics software looks like. “We are an unofficial infrastructure company,” Adebisi says. “It is real estate intensive, people intensive, capital intensive. Investors who typically fund SaaS are not looking for capex. And traditional investors do not get the tech story.” Happy Belly falls between both categories, and Adebisi has to construct a hybrid explanation of her valuation every time she enters a room. She is not the only one in this position. The problem, she argues, points to something the ecosystem has not fully worked out: how to evaluate and fund businesses that are genuinely hybrid, businesses that are neither pure software nor pure brick-and-mortar, but the increasingly common thing in between. Consumer tech in emerging markets looks different from consumer tech in San Francisco. The metrics, the timelines, the infrastructure costs, the risk profile, all of it is different. But Adebisi thinks that the frameworks investors use have not caught up. “You are just the chef.” There is a version of this misunderstanding that is more personal. Adebisi has sat in rooms and been told, in one form or another, that operations is not the real work of a tech company. That the engineers and product managers are the ones building something. That the people running the kitchen, managing the vendors, and designing the systems that keep food moving across a city are, at best, support functions. “Someone said to me, ‘You are just the chef,’” she recalls. “And it was my operational insight that was helping us optimise every section of the business, down to what technology should be built and what features we needed to improve operations.” Her argument is direct: in consumer tech, especially food, the money is in the operations. It is in inventory management, waste reduction, vendor relationships, and margin control. It is important to know that the type of rice you use for a menu item affects your volume and profitability. It is in having a system that tells you in real time how many orders
Read More
