AHL Venture Partners spent a decade doing equity in Africa. Then it chose debt.
Rosanne Whalley has been investing in Africa for 17 years. In that time, she has done early-stage equity, growth-stage equity, debt, fund investments, and mezzanine structures across several African countries. She has seen what works and what does not. She believes that the financial performance of Africa’s investment industry has been mixed, and most investors are only now starting to reassess how capital should be allocated on the continent. Whalley thinks debt funding is the best option for investors and founders. Whalley runs AHL Venture Partners, a Nairobi-based impact-focused venture capital firm founded in 2007 by a high-net-worth European family that wanted to support African entrepreneurs. For over a decade, AHL did a bit of everything, issuing equity cheques, fund commitments, and debt deals while building networks and learning the hard way what the continent rewards and what it punishes. Around 2020, the family behind AHL gave Whalley and her team a rare gift in African institutional investing: a blank canvas. No limited partner mandates. No sector restrictions. They gave her just one question: What can make money and have a durable impact? The answer they arrived at was private credit. Debt recycles faster than equity in African markets, the returns are more predictable, and the liquidity profile lets you fund more businesses over time, Whalley said. AHL cleaned up its legacy equity portfolio and reoriented around lending to scaling businesses with strong cash flows and management teams that do not go quiet when things get hard. The firm has now invested in over 35 businesses and is raising a dedicated debt fund to scale the strategy. But Whalley’s read on the broader market is sharp. She thinks impact investing has underdelivered financially, that development finance institutions treat private credit managers more as competition than partners, and that loading early-stage founders with sustainability and gender requirements before they have found product-market fit does more harm than good. In our conversation, Whalley and Kerry Nasidai, AHL’s investment manager, walk through why they abandoned equity for debt, how they price currency risk when lending in dollars in Africa, what red flags make Whalley walk away from a founder, and where she thinks African private credit is heading. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. AHL moved from equity-type investments to debt. Why did that transition happen? Kerry Nasidai: We’re in a unique position in that we have quite a long history. We were founded back in 2007 by a high-net-worth European family who had done some work on the continent and were thinking about how they could support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa. At that initial stage, it was very much about supporting the ecosystem from different angles. That meant doing some very early-stage equity investments, but also debt investments, mezzanine-type products, and even fund investments. We did that for years, building our networks and expertise with each new deal. Then, around 2020, there was an internal reframing of how we make all the impact we are creating sustainable. That ended up looking like: can we shift our focus more toward debt investments? There were a couple of reasons. Debt is more liquid and still very important to the market, but you can also be more prudent in how you deploy capital. The liquidity profile is quite different, and the returns profile is also quite different from equity in the African market. From 2020, Rosanne took over with this new strategy, which was primarily increasing our debt investments but also helping to clean up our equity and fund portfolio. The aim was to create a more sustainable structure for AHL because with more sustainability, more money comes back in, and we are able to support more businesses across the continent. Now we are at a very interesting stage where we are looking to set up a separate fund, building on the expertise we have developed since 2007 and the strong track record we have shown on debt. There has been more interest from the initial family that set up the foundation capital, but also from other investors we have interacted with. We are now in the process of beginning to close another fund, focused purely on debt. Rosanne Whalley: I have had the opportunity of investing across the region for the last 17 years, across everything from early-stage and growth-stage equity, debt, and fund investments. We had a very unique opportunity in 2019 and 2020, where we did not have a top-down strategy or mandate. If you think about it, most funds are dictated by their source of capital. LP capital tends to drive behaviour and strategy, especially in Africa, where a lot of capital is still development finance institution (DFI) and impact-driven. In our case, the family behind AHL essentially said: you as a team, work out what can make money and have a durable impact. That forces you to step out of “this is what I need to do” and instead think about what works, based on everything you have seen and where the market actually is. Because we had experience across fund investments, equity, and debt, and we were seeing how each was performing, we could assess what truly works for entrepreneurs, investors, and capital allocators in the region. That’s how we landed on the private credit strategy. Even within private credit, we’re not a typical lender. We want to partner with strong teams building defensible business models at scale and then finance them over a long-term journey. Over that journey, they will need different types of capital, like senior secured working capital, mezzanine financing, or bridge funding, at different points. What’s been a privilege at AHL is that we’ve been able to build this strategy bottom-up. That’s often not the case. Usually, strategies are dictated top-down. I think that’s been a key part of our ability to pivot and execute in a way that is actually working and now scaling. You’ve been investing in Africa for two decades. What’s the biggest structural shift you’ve seen
Read MoreSMC DAO acquires Nigerian crypto startup Bread Africa in six-figure deal
SirMapy and Co. decentralised autonomous organisation (SMC DAO), a community of crypto traders and investors that backs and builds Web3 products, has acquired Nigerian crypto startup Bread Africa in an undisclosed all-cash six-figure deal. The deal adds to a growing list of acquisitions among local crypto startups and reflects the steady consolidation underway in Nigeria’s digital asset ecosystem. In 2025, crypto startup Roqqu acquired Flitaa, an exchange platform with operations in Nigeria and Kenya, for an undisclosed amount. In Bread Africa’s case, the acquisition deepens an existing relationship between the buyer and the founder: its chief executive officer, Iam Etefia, previously sold two earlier ventures, Peniwallet and Peniremit, to SMC DAO in 2023 for $250,000. Founded in 2025, Bread Africa operates as a web-based crypto application that allows users to convert digital assets into local currency. The product stripped away the typical barriers associated with crypto transactions, with no sign-ups, no wallet connections, and no Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, offering what Etefia describes as a “frictionless” experience. Behind that simplicity was a more complex setup. Bread Africa ran on several blockchains, including Base and Solana, but ultimately settled transactions in compliant naira (cNGN), the naira-backed stablecoin, on Base to make transactions faster and cheaper. The platform converted crypto funds into cNGN and paid them directly into users’ bank accounts, enabling near-instant crypto-to-fiat conversions. Bread Africa also attracted early ecosystem backing. The startup received grants from cNGN, Base, and blockchain infrastructure provider Alchemy, reflecting its early integration into emerging crypto rails tied to the Nigerian market. “We integrated them [cNGN] without even having a relationship with them,” said Etefia in an interview with TechCabal. “We saw what cNGN could do and believed the naira could be spent globally, not just in Nigeria, so we built around that.” The startup, run by a three-person team, including Etefia, his co-founder, Maven Harry, and a community manager, had processed over $1.8 million in total payment volume (TPV) at the time of sale, according to Etefia. The acquisition transfers all of Bread Africa’s operational and branding assets to SMC DAO, which has long sought to own an exchange product within its ecosystem. Etefia will remain involved in an advisory capacity, consulting on Bread Africa’s development, while stepping back from day-to-day operations. His team, however, is moving on. Etefia and his co-founder will now focus fully on Loaf, a separate product they are building independently of the acquisition. The product is a significant expansion of Bread Africa’s original concept. Loaf goes beyond simple crypto swaps and functions as a “Web3 bank,” allowing users to spend crypto as easily as cash, including paying bills, buying airtime, and making cross-border payments without relying on traditional exchanges. For Etefia, selling Bread Africa and continuing to advise on it frees up his small team to concentrate on Loaf, which he argues has a much bigger upside. SMC DAO, the acquiring entity, operates as a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), an online community that pools funds and votes on what products to build or buy, similar to Shiba Inu and PEPE. For the community, Bread Africa is a ready‑made product that already helps people cash out of crypto into bank accounts. Under its new ownership, Bread Africa, which is currently under maintenance, will keep its core operational identity. “Bread Africa will remain a seamless web-based app with no sign-ups, wallet connections, or KYC required,” said an SMC DAO spokesperson. “We’re going to position the product as the go-to swap for cryptocurrencies.” The organisation is positioning the platform as a go-to destination for swapping digital assets, similar to decentralised exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap and PancakeSwap, which let users trade cryptocurrencies directly without intermediaries. SMC DAO also plans to evolve Bread Africa into a broader financial gateway that functions as an on-ramp, enabling users to exchange fiat for cryptocurrencies, and an off-ramp, to go back to cash. This is similar to how services like MoonPay work with crypto wallets such as Phantom, enabling users to buy and sell digital assets using traditional payment methods. Future iterations of Bread Africa will include support for multiple currencies, fiat-to-fiat conversions, and access to tokenised assets, such as stocks and commodities, which are digital versions of real-world financial instruments that can be traded on the blockchain, according to SMC DAO. As part of its post-acquisition strategy, the organisation has said it intends to transform Bread Africa into a “swap everything” platform, enabling users to move between crypto, fiat, and other digital representations of real-world assets. While the deal is modest in size and scope, it highlights a familiar pattern in Africa’s tech scene: small teams building focused products, testing user behaviour, and exiting early, often to ecosystem players looking to assemble broader financial platforms piece by piece.
Read More“I wasn’t aiming for Eventbrite, I was aiming for Ticketmaster”: Day 1 to 1000 of Jetron Ticket
Damilola Jerugba describes his interest in building things as a fascination with how things work and come together. He said he taught himself how to code through Udemy courses and YouTube tutorials, and then went on to work as a software engineer at companies like Reddit, Moniepoint, and Busha. At Reddit, he worked on the advertising team, helping build the infrastructure companies use to run campaigns. At Moniepoint, he worked on customer support tools as a senior frontend engineer, and at Busha, he worked as a backend engineer. These experiences, he said, shaped how he thought about performance, reliability, and building systems that worked at scale. “These weren’t just jobs; they were an education I brought back into Jetron Ticket every single time.” The idea for Jetron Ticket came when his close friend, Jemedafe Caleb, who organised events and parties, needed coordination and a more reliable way to manage attendees. Jerugba saw it as a problem to solve and an opportunity to sharpen his coding skills. He co-founded with Akinkunmi Solomon in 2022. In its earliest version, Jetron Ticket was an online ticketing platform where event organisers could create events, sell tickets, and manage check-ins through a dashboard. Operated by a 10-person team, the platform gradually grew from a side project to one that supports events across multiple Nigerian cities, including Lagos, Kaduna, Plateau, and Rivers. Nigeria’s events scene has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven by music, nightlife, and cultural moments like Detty December, the festive period from mid-December through the New Year. defined by partying, concerts, and festivities. In 2025, Lagos recorded nearly ₦400 billion ($290 million) in consumer spending during the period, with over ₦129 billion ($93 million) going to entertainment and nightlife alone, according to a report by YC-backed fintech, Cowrywise. What pushed Jerugba into ticketing was what he described as a gap between demand and infrastructure. “When Jetron Ticket started, there wasn’t much out there to help organisers run professional events,” he said. “The infrastructure serving that market still hasn’t caught up with the demand.” Day 1: The missing emails and the founder who did almost everything Jetron’s first day was at a Y2K-themed party organised by the same friend whose problem led Jerugba to build the product. He had spent two months building the platform’s first version: users could create events, attendees could buy tickets, receive QR codes, and get scanned in at the venue. It worked, mostly. But the gaps became obvious quickly. The platform had no system to store customer emails, which meant that there was no way to build a user base or follow up on attendees after the event. To improvise, Jerugba and his team asked attendees for their names and email addresses at check-in and then typed them into an Excel spreadsheet, one by one It was slow and made check-in more tedious than it needed to be, but it was the only workaround the team had. There were other problems. Some attendees completed payments but didn’t immediately receive their QR codes. Because the team was still small, Jerugba handled most of those issues himself. “I was handling everything during that time,” he said. “I handled the entire software development life cycle, customer support, and check-ins, meaning I went to the events to help them with scanning to make sure everything went well.” The missing email system was one of the first things the company fixed after that debut event. Payment confirmation was overhauled so tickets could be delivered reliably. With each new event, Jerugba said, the rough edges from that first night were addressed one by one. Day 500: Growth came, and so did the bills By Jetron’s 100-day mark, something had started to click. The platform had grown beyond the initial circle of friends and was showing up across different cities, without a marketing strategy in place, according to Jerugba. “Once someone uses our platform for an event… attendees who also organise events will look at our platform and use it,” he said. For what started as a side project, he didn’t hide his surprise at the traction it was getting, particularly when he received a customer support request for an event in Kaduna, one of the most populous cities in Northern Nigeria. As usage grew, so did the demands of running the business behind it. From its inception, Jetron was sustained by Jerugba and his co-founder’s salaries, channelled directly into the company. According to Jerugba, the team was spending over ₦1.6 million ($1,160) monthly on salaries alone, with labour accounting for the bulk of its costs, followed by infrastructure and third-party tools required to keep the platform running. It worked for a while until Jerugba lost his job at Reddit in 2023 when his contract role ended. While Jetron was generating revenue, it wasn’t enough to cover costs, and letting employees go wasn’t something he was willing to consider. For about three months, Jetron ran entirely on his personal savings. “It was a tight window, but because our infrastructure costs were lean, the platform stayed live throughout.” His understanding of the industry itself was also deepening. Working closely with event organisers, especially during peak periods like Detty December, exposed Jerugba to the mechanics of the market. He began studying global players in the ticketing space like Ticketmaster and StubHub, learning how they handled growth, their unique features, how their systems were structured, and how they supported large events. That research shaped Jetron’s direction. In 2023, Jetron introduced new features, like seat mapping, to give attendees more control over where they would sit at an event, believing it would bring a level of structure that mirrored more mature ticketing systems. Over time, the product expanded to include tools like group tickets, promo codes, and curated guest lists—features designed to reflect how people actually attend events in Nigeria, often in groups or through coordinated access. Eventually, revenue began to reflect Jetron’s growth and match its costs. According to Jerugba, Jetron processed over ₦60 million ($43,000) in ticket
Read MoreTelkom Kenya is now Kenya’s smallest mobile operator after two-year slide
Telkom Kenya has fallen to the country’s fifth-largest mobile operator, down from third place just two years ago. Its subscriber base shrank to roughly 744,500 by December 2025, down from 1.34 million in December 2023, according to Communications Authority (CA) data. The decline marks one of the sharpest contractions among Kenyan operators over that period, as Equitel and Jamii Telecommunications both overtook it. The decline came even as the broader market expanded. Over the same period, Safaricom grew to 52.3 million subscriptions and Airtel to 22.3 million, widening their lead, while Equitel and Jamii Telecommunications held or expanded within specific segments. The shift points to a market that is no longer just led by a dominant incumbent but increasingly defined by scale at the top and clear positioning among smaller players. Telkom has lost ground in absolute terms and slipped between these two ends of the market without a clear base to defend. Part of the decline is tied to network performance. The CA’s quality-of-service data shows Telkom trailing competitors on call stability and availability, a gap that weighs more in a prepaid market where most users can switch providers at little cost. In that environment, even small differences in reliability tend to translate quickly into churn, particularly among price-sensitive users, a segment Airtel targets aggressively. Infrastructure constraints compound the problem. Telkom’s long-running dispute with American Tower Corporation (ATC) over tower access and outstanding fees has threatened site shutdowns and limited the operator’s ability to maintain consistent coverage. That tension has made it harder to sustain network quality or expand capacity at a time when rivals have continued to invest, reinforcing a cycle in which weaker service feeds subscriber losses, which in turn constrain further investment. At the same time, Telkom’s market position has become harder to define. Safaricom continues to anchor its dominance in network reach and its mobile money ecosystem, while Airtel has combined lower pricing with improving coverage to add millions of users since 2023. Smaller operators have avoided direct competition by focusing on narrower use cases, with Equitel operating as the telecom arm of Equity Bank and Jamii Telecommunications targeting data-driven segments. Telkom’s slide suggests that operators without either advantage face growing difficulty holding on to users as competition sharpens.
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Regulatory Passporting and the Future of Cross-Border Fintech in Africa
Africa’s fintech giants are already regional, but regulation isn’t When Nigerian fintech companies expand across Africa, the technology often travels easily. Payments APIs integrate quickly, merchants understand the products, customers adopt digital wallets and online checkout tools without much friction. Regulation, however, does not travel as easily. A fintech that is licensed in Nigeria must often repeat the entire licensing process when entering another African market, navigating new capital requirements, compliance rules, reporting standards, and supervisory expectations. The result is a fragmented regulatory landscape that many fintech founders say slows expansion across the continent. This challenge sits at the centre of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Fintech Policy Insight Report, which explores the potential role of regulatory passporting in reducing duplication across jurisdictions. According to the CBN survey, 62.5% of fintech stakeholders already operate in or plan to expand into other African markets, and the same share supports the development of a regulatory passporting framework. The message from the ecosystem is clear: African fintech companies want to scale regionally. The question is whether the regulatory architecture of the continent is ready. Infrastructure matters as much as regulation Nigeria hosts one of Africa’s largest fintech ecosystems. Startups such as Flutterwave, Paystack, and Fincra now power payment infrastructure, merchant acquiring tools, cross-border settlement networks, and financial APIs used by businesses across multiple African markets. Yet each new market often introduces a different regulatory environment. Fintech operators expanding regionally must secure local licences, meet jurisdiction-specific capital requirements, and build relationships with local banking partners and regulators. These processes can take months and sometimes years. Passporting, Fincra argues, would also fundamentally reshape partnership models: by shifting relationships away from local intermediaries engaged purely for regulatory access toward partners focused on payment system connectivity, liquidity management, and settlement efficiency. But reducing licensing duplication, while necessary, may not be sufficient. Even operators who have cleared the regulatory hurdle find that the practical mechanics of cross-border payments introduce a separate layer of complexity. Expansion ambitions meet regulatory fragmentation Even when regulatory approval is secured, fintech companies must still navigate the practical mechanics of cross-border payments. These include foreign exchange constraints, liquidity management, settlement timing, and interoperability between payment systems. Nigeria’s domestic payments system offers an example of what coordinated infrastructure can achieve. The country’s instant payments network processed nearly 11 billion transactions in 2024, according to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). Nigeria’s scale is significant in global terms and has shown how large domestic payment rails can become foundational infrastructure for digital financial ecosystems. Yet, scaling such systems across borders introduces new coordination challenges: from fraud monitoring and dispute resolution to identity verification and settlement oversight. Transaction volume alone, however, does not define interoperability. In Paystack’s assessment, the gap between infrastructure progress and commercial reliability is where the most consequential work remains, particularly around data sharing, identity verification, and what merchants actually experience at the point of settlement. Passporting may start with bilateral corridors While passporting is often discussed as a continent-wide framework, the CBN report suggests that implementation may begin with smaller regulatory pilots. Survey participants proposed exploring bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and several peer regulators, including those in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Senegal. Such pilots could test mutual recognition of licences while regulators coordinate supervisory standards and consumer protection frameworks. They could also allow countries to experiment with payments system interoperability, particularly between markets with strong digital financial ecosystems. One example mentioned in the report is the possibility of testing interoperability between Nigeria’s and Ghana’s payments systems to support real-time cross-border settlement. These experiments could complement continental infrastructure initiatives such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which aims to enable instant cross-border payments in local currencies across participating African markets. For operators who have navigated Africa’s licensing landscape firsthand, passporting is less a destination than a foundation. Flutterwave, which has expanded across multiple African markets without a passporting framework in place, sees the bilateral corridor model as the right sequencing. How passporting works in other financial markets The idea of regulatory passporting is not unique to Africa. In the European Union, financial institutions licensed in one member state can operate across the bloc under passporting frameworks embedded in regulations such as MiFID II. This system allows banks, investment firms, and fintech companies to provide services across 27 EU countries without having to secure a licence in every country. The European Union’s Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) framework, for example, allows investment funds authorized in one member state to be marketed across the entire bloc, while Singapore’s Monetary Authority has pursued cross-border regulatory cooperation agreements to support fintech innovation. These precedents matter for Africa, but they do not translate directly. The EU’s passporting architecture was built on decades of regulatory convergence across economies with comparable institutional maturity. African regulators are now exploring whether similar coordination models can work across a continent with far more diverse regulatory environments, deeper infrastructure gaps, and a much shorter history of cross-border supervisory cooperation. The operators and investors who have engaged most closely with this question are clear that the concept is sound, but that the conditions which made it work elsewhere will need to be deliberately constructed here, not assumed. Why regulatory alignment matters for Fintech capital Beyond operators and regulators, passporting also matters for capital. African fintech startups attracted $1.38 billion in venture investment in 2025 alone, yet investors continue to weigh regulatory complexity when assessing cross-border expansion strategies. Growth investors often evaluate markets not only on demand and revenue potential, but also on regulatory predictability and the cost of expansion. However, regulatory alignment alone does not determine fintech success.Market depth, customer adoption, and strong product execution remain decisive factors. In that sense, passporting may reduce friction in scaling across markets, but it does not replace the fundamentals that ultimately drive company performance. As Lexi Novitske, partner at Norrsken22, noted in response to the CBN report, the practical implementation of new regulatory frameworks will matter as much as the concept
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Radhika Bhachu left BlackRock and returned home to rethink wealth
On the 10th floor of ABC Place in Nairobi’s Westlands, Radhika Bhachu doesn’t offer you tea. No small ceremony to ease you in. She’s already mid-thought when you sit down, like you’ve walked into a conversation she’s been having with herself all morning. If we weren’t doing this interview, she says, she’d be on investor calls. Properly in it. Updating her pipeline, responding to questions, and nudging conversations forward. In between, she’d be with her team—sales, marketing, client service—trying to get a feel of things on the ground. Are customers complaining? What’s slowing them down? Where can AI help? Then maybe coffee, but not the relaxed kind. The kind where you’re still half-working, just without your laptop open. She speaks quickly, but not nervously. There’s a rhythm to it. Before this, she was at BlackRock for five years as a relationship manager, helping investors build wealth quietly, predictably, over time. There are systems, structures and a lot of long-term thinking. Then she came back to Kenya in 2020 and found something else: people saving, hustling, building, but not quite investing in the way she had seen elsewhere. Now she’s trying to build that bridge through Ndovu, a Nairobi-based wealth management startup. Lately, what’s been sitting with her is a tension she doesn’t try to dress up. Last year, the company found that most of its revenue was coming from a small group of customers. The obvious move was to lean into that, middle income and above, the ones already closest to investing. It makes sense. It’s business. But that’s not why she started. “The vision is still everyone,” she says. “But you can’t do everything at once.” She pauses, briefly, then shrugs it off. “It’s just sequencing.” I spoke to Radhika about the path the BlackRock alumni took from the corridors of global finance to the messy, unpredictable business of getting Africans to invest. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. If we weren’t doing this interview, what would a perfect afternoon look like for you? Right now, I’m fundraising, so a perfect afternoon would involve investor calls, updating my investor pipeline, and responding to questions. I also oversee the distribution team, so I’d be working with sales, marketing, and client service to understand how business is going—are we getting customer complaints? How can we use AI to streamline tasks? So, really, thinking about distribution strategy and fundraising. It would probably end with coffee with a client or an investor. What’s been occupying your mind lately, something you keep coming back to? Last year, we realised that, like many businesses, 80% of our revenue comes from 20% of our clients. Our vision is that in a decade, every African will be a capital market investor. But the reality is that as an African startup, there’s not enough funding to go after the entire value chain—middle income, high net worth, and low income all require significant resources. Last year, we had to make a difficult decision: with our current funding and team, we needed to focus on the low-hanging fruit, middle-income and above. But as a founder, I started this to help everyone participate in wealth creation. We’ve partnered with banks and telcos to embed our solutions, but it’s disappointing that as a chief executive office (CEO), the right business decision is to move toward momentum—because that helps us grow revenue faster, increase our cash, and eventually serve smaller holders. It’s just sequencing. But it weighs on me. That, and cybersecurity. Radhika and a section of her staff. Image source: Ndovu You grew up between cultures. How did that shape your earliest understanding of money, security, and ambition? I’m a Kenyan-Indian, and that’s been amazing. Kenyan culture is very kind and community-led; people help each other. Indian culture thinks more about the future: you build wealth not just for this generation, but for your children’s children. What I think our culture could do better is talk about money at the dinner table. We didn’t, but we knew our parents had a business. They’d say, “Go have coffee with someone, see what they do, talk to that uncle at a party.” That helped you figure out what to study. But no one teaches you what to do once you have money. We’re launching a custodial product for children—parents manage it, but kids can research and see how their investments perform. That teaches budgeting, decision-making, and opportunity cost. Unfortunately, that’s taking a lower priority right now due to capital constraints. Was there a defining moment growing up when you realised money, or the lack of it, shapes how people move through the world? An unfortunate lesson about the world is that if you have money, you matter to somebody; if you have no money, you matter to nobody. And that’s just a really sad reality of the world. And I think growing up, not so much, but now, living in a social media age, it’s so apparent. For me, it was when I was younger. I lost my mom, and so my dad sent me to school, and I started doing the paper round (delivering newspapers). I was in Canada, and we used to do the paper round to make money. I’m very fortunate; everything was painful, but we started learning that to make money, you have to work really hard. And there’s a saying in our culture, actually: making money is the easy part, but keeping it, you know? Doing the paper round, then actually getting a job at 16; that’s when I was like, “wow, okay, making money is really hard.” That’s why, when you have money, there is some childhood stuff that kind of links back to saying I have to be successful because I want to be able to give my family everything they need. And you have to make sure that you’re working hard for money. And now it’s changed into: how can you be more valuable, and how can you create money not the
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How to file tax on the LIRS eTax portal: A step-by-step guide for Lagos residents
Table of contents Why was the deadline moved to April 14? What counts as “income” under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025? Who needs to file taxes in Lagos? What you need before you start filing on the LIRS eTax portal How to file taxes on the LIRS eTax portal: Step by step Penalties for not filing your tax return by April 14 What happens after you file? Getting your Tax Clearance Certificate Frequently asked questions about filing taxes on the LIRS eTax portal What Nigeria’s 2025 tax reform changed If you have been trying to figure out how to file taxes in Lagos, this guide covers everything you need. The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) eTax portal at etax.lirs.net is the only approved platform for filing your annual personal income tax return, with a deadline of April 14, 2026. Every Lagos resident earning income must file, including salaried employees. Even if your company deducts PAYE from your salary every month and remits it to the government, you are still legally required to file your own individual return. Your employer’s payment does not cover your filing obligation. This is the first filing season under Nigeria’s sweeping 2025 tax reform laws, which introduced new tax bands, abolished the old Consolidated Relief Allowance, and made electronic filing the only acceptable method. Below is everything you need to know, from required documents and step-by-step portal navigation to exact penalty figures and post-filing steps. Why was the deadline moved to April 14? On March 31, 2026, LIRS Executive Chairman, Dr Ayodele Subair, announced a two-week extension of the individual annual income tax return deadline, pushing it from the statutory March 31 to April 14, 2026. The press statement, signed by Head of Corporate Communications, Monsurat Amasa-Oyelude, described it as a one-off measure to ease compliance and give taxpayers additional time to complete and submit accurate tax returns. The official statement did not mention portal problems. But Technext broke a story on March 30: the LIRS eTax portal at etax.lirs.net had experienced widespread technical difficulties just one day before the original deadline. Users reported hours of failed access attempts, submission errors, and an inability to complete filings. One user noted: “This is what’s expected of a platform likely designed for a few thousand users per day, suddenly needed to be accessed by millions.” Since manual filing has been completely phased out, taxpayers had no alternative. This was not an isolated event. Earlier in 2026, LIRS also extended the employer annual returns deadline from February 1 to February 7, signalling a pattern of administrative flexibility under the new tax regime. LIRS described the extension as a one-off measure. After April 14, penalties under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA) 2025 kick in: N100,000 for the first month of default, plus N50,000 for each subsequent month. What counts as “income” under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025? The NTA 2025 defines ‘income’ broadly. Section 4 of the Act spells out every category of income, profits, or gains that are chargeable to tax. The law does not limit income to your salary or your business profit. It captures almost every way money can come to you. Here is what counts as taxable income: Employment income — your salary, wages, fees, allowances, bonuses, commissions, gratuity, and any other benefit your employer gives you, including things like a company car or rent-free accommodation Business and trade income — profit from any trade, business, or commercial activity. This includes selling perfume from home, baking and selling food, running a logistics operation from your phone, or any buying-and-selling activity, no matter how small Professional income — fees earned from professional services. This applies to lawyers, doctors, consultants, photographers, makeup artists, event planners, and any person who earns money by rendering a service Investment income — interest from savings accounts, dividends from shares, rent collected from property you own, and royalties Digital and virtual asset gains — profit from buying and selling crypto, NFTs, or any other digital asset Other sources — prizes, winnings, honoraria, grants, awards, discounts, rebates, and income from selling personal property or fixed assets The threshold is N800,000 per year. If your total income from all the sources above is N800,000 or less annually, your tax is 0%. But you are still required to file a return. Who needs to file taxes in Lagos? One of the biggest misconceptions in Nigerian tax compliance is the belief that salaried employees whose employers deduct Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax do not need to file annual returns. This is wrong. Section 14(3) of the NTAA 2025 explicitly resolves a long-standing ambiguity in the old Personal Income Tax Act: employees must file their own annual returns of income from all sources, notwithstanding the employer’s separate filing obligation under Section 14(1)-(2). LIRS has stated this directly: “Filing annual tax returns is not optional; it is a legal requirement under the NTAA 2025. While many employees believe their tax obligations end with PAYE deductions by employers, the LIRS clarifies that individuals must still file returns.” Taiwo Oyedele, Minister of State for Finance and Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, reinforced the point, noting that “the tax reforms clarify that employees cannot assume their obligations end once employers deduct taxes from their salaries.” Here are the categories of people legally required to file taxes in Lagos, under Section 13 of the NTAA 2025: Salaried/PAYE employees – Even if your employer already files PAYE returns and deducts tax monthly, you must file an individual annual return declaring all income sources. This includes your salary, any side businesses, freelance work, rental income, and dividends. Self-employed individuals, freelancers, and gig workers – This includes digital creators, consultants, and anyone earning from online platforms. The NTA 2025 expressly brings digital/virtual asset gains, prizes, honoraria, and nontraditional income into the tax net. Business owners – Sole proprietors file as individuals under personal income tax. Partnerships are addressed under Section 15 of the NTA 2025. Professionals – Lawyers, doctors, accountants,
Read MoreKenya’s AI bill creates a new digital sheriff with sweeping powers
In February 2026, Kenya took a decisive step toward regulating one of the most transformative technologies of the modern era. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bill (2026), sponsored by Nominated Senator Karen Nyamu, marks the country’s first comprehensive attempt to bring order, accountability, and structure to its rapidly growing AI ecosystem. For years, Kenya has been described as Africa’s “Silicon Savannah” due to the global success of homegrown innovations like M-Pesa (mobile money) and Ushahidi (crowdsourced crisis mapping). It thrived on innovation powered by startups and global tech firms experimenting with everything from fintech algorithms to health diagnostics. But this growth has largely existed within a patchwork of laws, including the Data Protection Act of 2019 and the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act of 2018. The new bill seeks to unify and modernise this fragmented approach. Borrowing heavily from the European Union’s AI Act of 2024, Kenya’s proposal aims to strike a delicate balance between enabling innovation and protecting citizens. At the heart of this effort is a powerful new institution that could redefine how technology is governed in the country. The most consequential feature of the bill is the creation of the Office of the Artificial Intelligence Commissioner, an independent authority tasked with enforcing AI rules. In policy circles, this office has already earned a nickname: the “digital sheriff.” This is not merely symbolic. The Commissioner, according to the bill, will wield sweeping powers to inspect AI systems, access training data, investigate complaints, and issue enforcement notices. The office, TechCabal learnt, will also maintain a public register of high-risk AI systems operating in Kenya, bringing a new level of transparency to technologies that have often operated in the shadows. Appointed by the President and approved by the National Assembly, the Commissioner will serve a five-year renewable term. The role is structured to ensure autonomy, positioning it alongside other key state offices. However, the qualifications required for the position are unusually stringent. Similar positions in other government agencies are filled by government appointees, with little emphasis on advanced qualifications. For the AI commissioner role, the bill specifies that candidates must have advanced academic credentials and a minimum Master’s degree in AI, Computer Science, Law, Ethics, or Engineering. They must also have at least 10 years of experience in AI governance and institutional leadership, raising questions about whether such expertise is readily available in a still-emerging field. Beyond enforcement, the bill noted that the office will also shape the broader AI ecosystem. It will develop ethical guidelines, promote AI literacy among citizens, and oversee regulatory sandboxes where startups can test new technologies under relaxed rules. A risk-based approach? Central to the bill is a four-tier classification system that regulates AI based on its potential for harm. This framework reflects a growing global consensus that not all AI systems should be treated equally. At the highest level are systems deemed to pose an “unacceptable risk.” These include technologies designed for cognitive manipulation, government-led social scoring, or intrusive surveillance. Such systems are banned outright, with their development or deployment considered a criminal offence. The next category, “high-risk” AI, covers applications that influence critical aspects of life, such as healthcare, banking, education, and law enforcement. These systems will face strict requirements, including human rights impact assessments, mandatory registration, and continuous human oversight. The aim is to ensure that decisions affecting livelihoods and freedoms are not left entirely to algorithms. “Limited risk” systems, such as chatbots and AI-generated media, must meet transparency obligations. Users must be clearly informed when they are interacting with AI or viewing synthetic content. Meanwhile, “minimal risk” applications, including spam filters and video game algorithms, will remain largely unregulated to encourage innovation. This tiered approach allows regulators to focus resources where the stakes are highest, while giving developers room to experiment in lower-risk areas. Tackling digital harm One of the most immediate concerns addressed by the bill is the rise of deepfakes and AI-driven misinformation. With Kenya’s 2027 general elections on the horizon, lawmakers are particularly wary of how synthetic media could be used to manipulate public opinion. The bill introduces strict penalties for non-consensual deepfakes, including fines of up to KES 5 million and prison terms of up to two years. It also criminalises the use of AI-generated content for political interference, signalling a proactive attempt to safeguard democratic processes. These provisions build on existing laws like the Data Protection Act of 2019, but go further by explicitly targeting AI-enabled harm. They reflect a broader recognition that the risks posed by AI are no longer theoretical but already shaping real-world events. Beyond enforcement and penalties, the bill places a strong emphasis on protecting individual rights. One of its most notable provisions is the “right to explanation,” which allows citizens to demand clear, plain-language justifications for automated decisions that affect them. Whether it is a rejected loan application or an unsuccessful job screening, individuals will have the right to understand how an algorithm reached its conclusion and to request human review. This provision aims to counter the opacity of AI systems, often described as “black boxes.” Developers are also required to adopt human-centric design principles, ensuring that their systems prioritise safety, fairness, and non-discrimination. In doing so, the bill aligns Kenya’s AI governance with global ethical standards. Innovation vs regulation While the bill introduces significant oversight, it also recognises the need to nurture innovation. Regulatory sandboxes are a key part of this strategy, offering startups a controlled environment to test new AI products without facing the full burden of compliance from the outset. This approach reflects lessons from other jurisdictions, where overly rigid regulations have sometimes stifled emerging industries. By providing flexibility, Kenya hopes to maintain its reputation as a leading tech hub in Africa. However, not everyone is convinced the balance is right. Critics argue that the compliance requirements for high-risk AI, combined with steep penalties, could place an undue burden on smaller startups. For companies operating on limited budgets, the cost of audits, documentation, and oversight may prove prohibitive.
Read More33 banks raise ₦3.37 trillion from Nigerians as CBN ends recapitalisation
Nigeria’s banking sector has wrapped up one of its biggest capital-raising exercises in recent history, with lenders pulling in a combined ₦4.65 trillion to meet new regulatory thresholds set by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The capital raise drew heavily from local investors, who accounted for 72.55% (₦3.37 trillion) of the total, while foreign investors contributed 27.45% (₦1.28 trillion), a split the CBN says signals sustained confidence in Nigeria’s banking system despite macroeconomic headwinds. In a press statement on Wednesday, the regulator said the over 24-month recapitalisation programme, which began in March 2024, has now been concluded, strengthening banks’ balance sheets and positioning the sector to better absorb shocks and fund economic growth. “The recapitalisation programme has strengthened the capital base of Nigerian banks,” said CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso. “Reinforcing the resilience of the financial system and ensuring it is well-positioned to support economic growth and withstand domestic and external shocks.” The recapitalisation exercise, first announced in 2024, was meant to strengthen banks’ balance sheets amid rising inflation, currency volatility, and growing credit risks, while positioning lenders to finance Nigeria’s long-term ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy. Under the new regime, banks must meet minimum paid-up capital based on their operating licences: international banks to ₦500 billion ($370.58 million), national banks to ₦200 billion ($148.23 million), regional banks to ₦50 billion ($37.06 million), merchant banks to ₦50 billion ($37.06 million), non-interest banks with national authorisation to ₦20 billion ($14.82 million), and non-interest banks with regional authorisation to ₦10 billion ($7.41 million). Most banks clear the bar According to the CBN, 33 banks have met the revised minimum capital requirements. A handful of institutions remain entangled in regulatory and judicial processes, which are being addressed through established supervisory and legal frameworks. The regulator stressed that all banks are still fully operational. With the recapitalisation phase now closed, the CBN is shifting focus to supervision. Banks are now required to run regular stress tests and maintain capital buffers under a strengthened risk-based framework. The regulator also signalled that prudential guidelines and supervisory rules will be reviewed periodically to keep pace with evolving risks. The CBN noted that banking services remained uninterrupted throughout the capital raise, preserving access for individuals and businesses, a critical factor in a period of economic adjustment. According to the apex bank, the successful completion of the programme establishes a stronger and more resilient banking system, better positioned to support lending, mobilise savings, and withstand domestic and global shocks.
Read MoreTechCabal: Four-point-oh
How we’re thinking about 2026 and beyond. Here’s the thing about two speeds. Over the last few years, the African tech ecosystem has been moving at a pace that feels almost contradictory: consolidation at the centre and new ideas flickering relentlessly at the edges. Capital tightened, regulation grew heavier. Scale began pooling around fewer, stronger players. Meanwhile, out past the headlines, new ideas continued to form — quieter now, less theatrical, yet persistent. If you’re only watching one speed, you’re half-blind. Technology stopped being a standalone sector. These shifts are showing up everywhere — in how people work, move money, access services, and navigate daily life, often far from anything labelled ‘tech’. In moments like this, the signals that matter most are easy to miss if you’re only watching the surface. TechCabal has lived through multiple cycles of this ecosystem, which is why we recognise this moment for what it is. And it’s why Q1 looked the way it did. We launched Headlines By TC A weekly newsroom conversation that interrogates the most important technology headlines and explains what they actually mean for people living and working in Africa. The tone is casual; the journalism is rigorous. It’s not a recap show. It surfaces the non-obvious insight and resolves confusion. We also shipped TC Predictions 2026 An annual outlook collecting evidence-based predictions from industry leaders across African tech. Not gut feelings. Theses grounded in data, explicit in their claims, and specific enough to be evaluated at year-end. Both are early signals of what we’re building toward. That direction has a name now: Four-Point-Oh. Shaped by experience. Guided by judgment. Focused — more deliberately than ever — on helping you see beyond what’s trending to what’s happening, and what it means. In practice, this means investing in our newsmaking system: our ability to tell you what happened, fast, when it matters. A fintech acquires a competitor, a policy drops, a platform goes dark, a founder raises a round — we want to get it to you first. Speed still counts, but with context. The analysis, the features, the profiles, the deep dives—they follow, building on the headline to show you what it actually means and where it leads. We’ve organised our coverage around four verticals, each designed to track specific forces shaping the ecosystem: Startups tracks who’s building and what new technologies emerge before they’re obvious; Money follows how capital moves; Enterprise & Policy covers what regulators and platforms decide; and Life & Work captures how all of it shows up in everyday life. Over the next few weeks, you’ll see this reflected more visibly on the site and across our platforms. Four-Point-Oh What’s Happening. What It Means. + Startups Who’s Building, How, Why? + Money Capital, Funding, Returns + Enterprise & Policy Regulation, Infrastructure + Life & Work People, Platforms, Access Founders, Products AI, Hardware, Crypto New Frontiers Growth Signals Venture Rounds Revenue Models Transaction Economics Who Profits, How Telcos, Government Platform Decisions Regulatory Shifts Ecosystem Ripple Effects Work Culture Service Access Digital Daily Life Human Stories Signals Over Surface. · Context Over Speed. All of Four-Point-Oh will be anchored by a registration layer — signing up to get unlimited access to all of TechCabal’s reporting, for FREE. Beyond access, it marks the beginning of a deeper relationship: early access to events, from mixers and roundtables to Moonshot in October. The ability to contribute your perspective to our reporting — through tips, feedback, and direct input into the stories we tell. And where relevant, your work could get featured for what you’re building inside the ecosystem. It’s started out as a busy year, and it’ll only get busier. But here’s the commitment: we’ll be paying attention, asking the questions as the answers become less obvious.
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