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If you ask Nelson Olanipekun how he built Citizens’ Gavel, the non-profit platform that uses AI to help people navigate Nigeria’s justice system, he would start with the story of an elderly woman whose case mirrored something much closer to home. In 2017, he was working as a lawyer in a private firm, whose major clients were banks, when the case landed on his desk. The retired woman had taken an unnamed bank to court after it refused to pay out her savings, plus interest. Nelson’s job was to defend the bank. As the case proceeded, it began to look familiar. Years earlier, Olanipekun’s father was caught in a similar ordeal in which the same procedural tactics nearly cost his family their home. He left the law firm after a few months. He had no plan in mind, but with only the conviction to change the system he was working within, a system, he believed, wasn’t built to protect the people it claimed to serve. Day 1: An idea that didn’t hold The gap in Nigeria’s justice system is significant. According to the World Justice Project, an international civil society organisation aiming to advance the rule of law globally, the country ranks 104th of 143 on civil justice and 90th of 143 on criminal justice, with cost, delay, effectiveness, corruption and discrimination among the biggest barriers. Within that context, Olanipekun began to think about how technology could be used to address some of these gaps. His first idea for an access-to-justice platform powered by technology was not Citizens’ Gavel. He called it Open Judiciary, and it was designed to fight corruption within the judicial system. The idea was built on stare decisis, a legal doctrine that requires lower courts to follow established precedents, especially from superior courts. According to Olanipekun, Open Judiciary was intended to track and monitor whether judgments from lower courts aligned with a precedent from higher courts. In 2017, he joined the accelerator programme at CivicHive, an initiative focused on startups using technology to drive civic engagement. It was during one of the pitch sessions that he was asked to refine his idea. Instead of trying to analyse the system from the outside, he began to think about how to intervene directly and connect people to lawyers to enable them to understand the justice system. That became Citizens’ Gavel, an access-to-justice platform launched the same year. Gavel’s early activities were mainly carried out on social media. On those platforms, people would reach out to organisations to report incidents. Olanipekun said he would pick up cases, follow up on them, and in many instances, travel to locations himself to intervene. By 2018, lawyers who saw the work based on people’s reactions on social media joined Citizens’ Gavel as volunteers. Funding at this stage was little. The CivicHive accelerator provided a fellowship stipend that he used for rent and volunteer support, and there was still no full clarity on what Gavel would become. “I didn’t quite understand the full extent of what I was working on, the full extent of the problem,” he said. “Nothing was clear initially, but I felt that it was unique because I was using technology.” Day 500: Working the #EndSARS movement Olanipekun noted that by early 2019, Citizens’ Gavel’s activities began unfolding in waves. Across Nigeria, there were repeated reports of police brutality, particularly involving the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the police that had long been accused of extortion, unlawful arrests, and violence. Each time there was an incident of police brutality, people would go online to make a post and tag organisations to get help. In October 2020, these scattered incidents became a nationwide youth-led protest, tagged #EndSARS, demanding accountability, reform, and an end to systemic abuse. Protesters who needed legal support, and families who were trying to get their loved ones released, were among the people Olanipekun said reached out to the organisation. According to him, the cases Citizen’s Gavel handled at that time multiplied. Citizen’s Gavel was not alone in that moment. A loose network of organisations, including the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) Nigeria, a human rights advocacy organisation; Feminist Coalition, a women’s rights advocacy group that led emergency response, fundraising, and logistic support for protesters; and Mentally Aware NG, a mental health nonprofit that offered free therapy for illegally detained and harassed protesters, were among the organisations that assisted during that period. To respond to the influx of cases, Citizens’ Gavel had to operate like an emergency system. Olanipekun said that Gavel’s network of volunteer lawyers expanded to 250 across the country, with rapid response legal teams, who could get to police stations and engage authorities quickly, positioned in Lagos and Abuja. According to him, Gavel secured the release of detainees and worked on cases that led to compensation for victims. “That year alone, we were involved in over 400 intervention cases specifically tailored to people who were arrested and detained during the EndSARS protest,” he said. As the cases increased for Gavel’s team, so did the risks. Olanipekun recalled that they received threats and intimidation calls to stop litigation. He also described that witness protection became a part of their job. “#EndSARS was the hardest. It was emotionally draining,” he said. “I had to run away from the country because of the blowback.” By the time the protests slowed, Citizens’ Gavel had operationally gone through a pressure and scale different from what it started as. That experience shaped what it built next. Day 1000: Building structure around scale Post 2020, Olanipekun described activities at Citizens’ Gavel as revolving around putting more structures following the deluge of cases the team handled during the protests. The organisation built products that could handle parts of the process without needing a lawyer at every step. There was Justice Clock in 2021, designed for tracking case files and managing cases launched by the Lagos State Government. There was also Filer, which Olanipekun described as a platform that
Read MoreNigeria’s largest telecom operators are temporarily suspending airtime and data loan services, a once-sticky feature for prepaid users, as new consumer lending rules force them into full regulatory compliance. On Thursday, MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telco, temporarily suspended its airtime and data lending product, Xtratime, and Airtel Nigeria, the second-largest provider, followed suit on Friday, citing the need to align with “evolving requirements.” Both companies say customers can still purchase airtime and bundles through standard channels. “MTN Nigeria Communications PLC (MTN Nigeria or the Company) hereby notifies the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public that the Company has temporarily suspended its airtime and data credit advance service (“Xtratime”),” the telco said in its filing. “This relates to the implementation of processes under the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations, 2025, which introduced a new compliance and licencing framework for entities providing digital or non-traditional consumer credit services.” Nigerian telecom providers are reviewing their digital lending services to consumers following new rules by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), passed in July 2025. Those guidelines apply to any entity involved in the provision, facilitation, or administration of digital or non-traditional consumer lending, bringing airtime and data advances into scope and requiring operators to obtain licences and meet the compliance requirements before continuing the services. “Airtel Nigeria remains committed to the highest standards of compliance, transparency, and consumer protection, while continuing to innovate responsibly within Nigeria’s digital ecosystem,” said Ismail Adeshina, the company’s director of marketing, in the statement released Friday. However, in a statement issued on Friday, the FCCPC pushed back against claims that it ordered the suspension of airtime lending services, stating that it “has not prohibited airtime borrowing or data advance services, and no directive was issued preventing consumers from accessing lawful telecom value-added services.” The regulator framed the disruptions as a consequence of operators’ failure to comply with existing rules within the stipulated timelines. The FCCPC’s Digital, Electronic, Online, or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending (DEONCL) Regulations and Guidelines apply to entities involved in digital consumer lending, including services tied to repayable monetary value. Products, such as MTN’s Xtratime, fall within the scope of the framework. The FCCPC said the rules were introduced following “a deluge of consumer complaints” involving opaque charges, unexplained deductions, aggressive recovery practices, and poor disclosure standards across digital lending services. According to the consumer protection watchdog, affected digital lending operators, including telcos, were initially given a 90-day compliance window in 2025, later extended to January 5, 2026, yet relevant operators failed to meet the necessary compliance steps. “In the telecom sector, our findings indicated that some operators engaged in exclusionary third-party technical arrangements in clear disobedience to the provisions of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018. The Regulations sought to unlock the market to allow local participants alongside foreign partners, in line with free market principles. These measures benefit Nigerians by reducing abusive practices, improving transparency, strengthening consumer choice, and encouraging responsible innovation by legitimate operators,” the regulator said on Friday. Any temporary suspension, restriction, or operational change introduced by service providers, including telcos, should therefore be understood as a business or compliance decision by those operators, not a ban imposed by the FCCPC, the statement read. Securing approval under the framework requires service providers to apply to the FCCPC, submit corporate and ownership documents, and disclose their lending models, including interest rates, charges, and default fees. Applicants must also declare all digital lending applications and interfaces used to issue credit, and provide evidence that these systems meet data protection and security standards under Nigerian law. The rules further require formal consumer lending or service-level agreements (SLAs) for any partnerships with banks or fintechs. The FCCPC charges approval and renewal fees under the regulations, including an additional ₦500,000 ($372) for each lending application beyond the initial five permitted under a single approval. While it is usually not reported separately, airtime lending contributes a sizable amount to telcos’ revenue. In 2025, MTN Nigeria’s fintech revenue reached ₦191.3 billion ($142.5 million), growing by 80% from the previous year. About ₦10.9 billion ($8.1 million) accounted for its core fintech revenue, while the rest significantly came from airtime lending and other value-added services. In Airtel’s case, the telco reports airtime credit service under its mobile services revenue segment, and according to how it defined this product in its 2025 financial year, it treats airtime credit as a value‑added service (VAS) classified as a mobile services product rather than a mobile money product. In the nine months to December 2025, Airtel Nigeria’s mobile services revenue grew by 50% to $1.12 billion from $738 million year‑on‑year in constant‑currency terms. Data brought in $576 million; voice contributed $432 million, and “other” revenue—the bucket where airtime and data credit earnings sit—reported $113 million, up by about 44% from the previous year. By comparison, Airtel Nigeria’s mobile money product, SmartCash, earned only $6 million over the same period, underscoring how small its fintech line still is relative to core mobile services income. Airtime and data lending are high-margin businesses for telcos, since they keep the interest on advances, while incurring little to no procurement costs. Airtime credit is also critical for Nigeria’s credit-starved market, where increased telecom tariffs have pushed up the cost of staying online. Other telecom operators operating in Nigeria, including Globacom and T2, are yet to announce similar moves. Both MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria said the suspension is temporary and that the services will resume once they meet the requirements.
Read MoreAfrica’s financial infrastructure did not evolve like Europe’s or North America’s. In many respects, it leapfrogged legacy models altogether. Across much of the continent, mobile money, not cards, is the primary payments infrastructure. Instant payment volumes across the continent have grown at an average rate of 35% annually since 2020, and mobile money volumes now exceed 80 billion transactions per year. Financial inclusion has expanded rapidly over the past decade, bringing millions into formal commerce for the first time. Consumers who were previously cash-bound can now pay for pretty much everything directly from their phones. As Africa’s digital economy accelerates toward a projected $1.5 trillion by 2030, the question is no longer whether African consumers can participate in the digital economy. They already do. The real question is whether this infrastructure can support enterprise-scale trade without creating new systemic risks. When transactions increase from thousands to millions, payments stop being a growth feature and start becoming critical infrastructure. At that point, clarity becomes essential: knowing whether a payment has succeeded, when funds will settle, and who is responsible when something goes wrong. At low volumes, ambiguity is manageable. At scale, it becomes costly. Consider a customer who authorises a payment and is debited, but the business never receives confirmation. Goods cannot be released, and trust is instantly damaged. The stakes are higher in time-sensitive contexts such as transport, food delivery, or credit repayment, where delayed confirmation creates immediate friction. At scale, these failures translate directly into lost revenue and reputational damage. Across the continent, unresolved or failed transactions cost businesses billions annually. These frictions are not edge cases. They are structural symptoms of a system still moving from consumer-scale adoption to enterprise-grade infrastructure. As payment flows become more interconnected across banks, mobile money operators, and fintech platforms, small breaks also stop being isolated issues. A delayed confirmation or a missing status update doesn’t just affect a single transaction or one single customer; it creates uncertainty across reconciliation, customer experience, and cash flow. At scale, that uncertainty compounds. Across multiple payment channels, it becomes harder to determine where a payment failed, who holds the funds, and how quickly it can be recovered. That complexity is greater still in a cross-border context, where siloed regulatory frameworks add further uncertainty to how the individual payment channels interact with one another across different markets. The result is a hidden tax on growth, one that increases with volume. Not because payments are failing more often, but because the cost of not knowing increases. Building for resilience is not about eliminating failure; it’s about making failure visible, attributable, and recoverable within defined timelines. That is what separates infrastructure that can support enterprise-scale trade from systems that simply process transactions at scale. The first phase of African fintech prioritised speed and access, connecting consumers and businesses to digital rails at scale. That mission has largely been accomplished. Now those same businesses are moving into higher-value, cross-border trade. Africa and the Middle East’s B2B payments markets alone are projected to reach $162 billion by 2033. The next phase demands operational certainty: systems that deliver finality, liquidity, and resilience robust enough for enterprise growth. Access to financial systems has unlocked participation. But it is reliability that will determine who can scale. This is particularly true in today’s environment, where regulatory scrutiny is tightening, and enforcement is catching up with transaction volume. Businesses built on opaque or heavily intermediated structures may find it harder to sustain enterprise growth. Over time, I’ve seen that three attributes increasingly define infrastructure built for this scale. First, transaction certainty. Businesses need visibility over every payment, from initiation to final settlement. Not every transaction will succeed; that is a reality of any payment system. But uncertainty about what happened to a customer’s money erodes trust faster than failure itself. Volume does not break payment systems. Ambiguity does. When providers cannot give real-time status, clear settlement timelines, and proper exception handling, merchants carry the risk and the cost as they grow. Second, compliance depth. Licencing should be treated as an infrastructure, not administration. Direct regulatory engagement and meaningful local authorisation reduce reliance on intermediaries, lower structural risk, and demonstrate long-term commitment to safeguarding funds. Third, platform resilience. Uptime should be a technical metric that reflects architectural discipline. In fragmented markets, downstream failures are inevitable. Systems built to anticipate those failures and reconcile them in near real time are the ones capable of supporting enterprise-grade volume. The next phase will be quieter but more demanding, managing complexity to ensure every transaction resolves with certainty. When payments disappear from everyday conversation, that is when they are working. Good payments are invisible; not because they are simple, but because someone else is managing the complexity. ____ Jamie Steell is the Chief Operating Officer at pawaPay, where he has helped build and scale one of Africa’s leading mobile money payment platforms. His background spans high-growth fintech and multinational regulated environments, including senior roles at betPawa, Sportech PLC, and KPMG.
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