Marhabaan,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here’s what I’ve got for you:
- 9Mobile faces fresh ownership dispute in court
- How rejection fueled Dala’s rise to big tech
- Okra shuts down as co-founder Fara Jituboh exits
9Mobile faces fresh ownership dispute in court
A fresh legal battle is brewing over control of 9mobile, and it’s heading back to court this September. The Federal High Court in Abuja has set September 24 to rule on several motions in a case filed by businessman Abubakar Ismaila Isa, who claims his 43 million shares were moved without his consent into the hands of Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Ltd, the operator of 9mobile.
Isa alleges that Seltrix Limited, a company he trusted to hold the shares on his behalf, transferred them without his approval to 9mobile, paving the way for LH Telecommunication Limited to eventually take over the telco. The case, filed under suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/1971/2024, also names the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) among nine defendants.
The businessman is asking the court to declare him the rightful owner of the 43 million shares and to nullify the transfer and change in control of 9mobile. He argues that his shares in Teleology Nigeria Ltd, which at the time held majority control of 9mobile, were improperly used in a loan arrangement involving AFREXIM Bank and eventually handed over without legal backing.
At Wednesday’s hearing, senior lawyers for the defendants, including Michael Aôndoakaa, SAN, argued the case should be dismissed for being filed too late and called it an abuse of court process. He suggested Isa should file a civil suit against his trustee instead of dragging multiple parties into court.
But Isa’s lawyer, Femi Atteh, SAN, pushed back. He insisted the heart of the matter is trust law, and the case deserves to go to full trial. He accused the defendants of acting without due process and asked the judge to allow the case to proceed so the “real issues” could be heard and settled in court.
The case touches on a wider backstory. 9mobile, formerly Etisalat, has changed hands multiple times, first acquired by Teleology in 2018 after loan defaults, then again by LH Telecommunication in 2024. The battle over who owns what is far from over, and the court’s ruling in September could shake things up.
How rejection fueled Dala’s rise to big tech
When you think of top-tier software engineers, you probably imagine someone who cracked their first algorithm trying to solve some mind-bending challenge on a shiny MacBook. But for Fanan Dala, it all started with pen and paper. At just 12 years old, without a computer, he began writing code in his school notebooks, driven by childhood dreams fuelled by Star Trek, Star Wars, and a deep love for automation.
By age eight, Dala already knew he wanted to build things that made life easier. While many kids his age were dodging maths homework, he was dreaming up a local Khan Academy-style website to help classmates understand numbers better. That drive led him to volunteer at a school, which in turn opened the door to his first internship at a real estate company.
There, he didn’t just sit around shadowing engineers. He was the engineer. Dala noticed the team was struggling to upload property listings manually, so he built a system that turned their 100-listings-a-week workflow into 1,000 listings a day. It was a small win, but it lit a fire in him to work at the biggest stage possible: companies like Meta, Amazon, Google.
But getting into a MAANG company? It wasn’t as easy as just having skills. Despite a first-class degree in electrical engineering and a string of impressive projects, the rejections kept pouring in. “I didn’t get it,” he says. “I was building amazing stuff and getting nowhere.” Still, instead of giving up, Dala doubled down, leading engineering on two startups (one of which got a CNN feature), contributing to open-source, writing articles, and pushing out excellent work wherever he landed.
His mindset? If you can’t be ignored, you can’t be denied. So, while the doors stayed shut for a while, by 2022, the tide turned. Meta and Amazon, and a few other big names reached out. This time, he wasn’t applying. They were calling.
Want to know how Dala’s journey to Meta finally played out? Find out more on Sarah’s latest.
Okra shuts down as co-founder Fara Jituboh exits
Fara Ashiru Jituboh, co-founder and former CEO/CTO of Nigerian fintech Okra, has officially left the company, and the company itself has shut down operations. Per an update on her LinkedIn and a confirmation to Techpoint Africa, Okra closed its doors in May 2025, marking the end of a five-year run as one of Africa’s open banking pioneers.
“It was an incredible journey,” Jituboh said. “We built impactful technology, worked with some of the biggest brands on the continent, and helped pioneer open banking in Africa.” Okra had made a name for itself by creating APIs that allowed users to securely link their bank acc0unts to third-party apps, a critical infrastructure layer for fintech across Nigeria and beyond.
Founded in 2019 by Jituboh and David Peterside (who exited in 2022), Okra raised over $15 million in funding from investors like TLcom Capital and Susa Ventures. The company hit key milestones early, integrating with major banks and clients like Branch, Bamboo, AIICO, and Renmoney. At its peak, API usage grew 175% in a single quarter back in 2020.
In October 2024, Okra launched Nebula, its cloud service, aimed at solving a painful problem for Nigerian tech companies, skyrocketing cloud costs due to naira depreciation. Nebula joined other local cloud efforts like Nobus and Layer3, promising naira-priced alternatives to AWS and Azure. But despite the pivot, cost pressures and infrastructure challenges proved hard to beat.
Jituboh’s path to Okra was shaped by her global experience at Canva, BMW, and JP Morgan, but it was her return to Nigeria and the frustration that fintech apps didn’t work with local banks that pushed her to build Okra in the first place. She led the company through product growth, market expansion efforts, and eventually, the shift to infrastructure.
With the shutdown now confirmed and no successor named, this marks the close of a bold chapter in Nigeria’s fintech evolution. Jituboh is already onto her next role as Head of Engineering at Kernel, a British startup. Meanwhile, the ecosystem is watching closely to see who will take up the mantle in Africa’s open finance space.
In case you missed it
- Nigeria’s telecom regulator greenlights MTN and 9Mobile’s three-year roaming deal
What I’m watching and reading
- What Ozempic & Weight Loss Drugs Really Do to the Body
- Healthy Foods That Are Actually Total Scams
Opportunities
- Lagos Business School is hiring. Apply here.
- Kuda is looking to fill 37 positions. Apply here.
- MasterCard is recruiting a Head of Impact Labs. Apply here.
- Jumia is hiring a Chief Marketing Officer (Pipeline). Apply here.
- Sun King is looking for a Workforce Planning Analyst, Nigeria. Apply here.
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Have a superb Thursday!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa
