Namasṭē,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
- NIBSS goes to court over ₦13.66 billion glitch
- This 16-year-old Nigerian wants to fix freelancing with AI
- Ethio Telecom makes history with Ethiopia’s first IPO
NIBSS goes to court over ₦13.66 billion glitch
Nigeria’s banking infrastructure is back in the spotlight after a technical glitch accidentally sent ₦13.66 billion into customer accounts that were never supposed to receive the money, as reported by ITWeb Africa. The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), which powers instant bank transfers across the country, has now gone to the Federal High Court in Lagos to recover the funds nearly two years after the incident happened. According to court documents, the problem started on September 6, 2024, when a fault on the Nigeria Instant Payment (NIP) platform triggered what bankers call “dry posting,” money getting credited to accounts without the actual debit side of the transaction happening. The glitch reportedly affected 176 accounts across 19 banks and microfinance institutions.
What makes the case particularly messy is how long it has dragged on. NIBSS says it immediately alerted the affected banks and asked them to restrict the accounts involved, but the banks reportedly refused without a court order. Legally, the banks had a point. Freezing customer accounts without proper judicial backing can create its own legal problems. But that delay also meant many of the accounts remained active while NIBSS navigated the courts. Now, almost 20 months later, the settlement company is asking for account freezes, Post No Debit restrictions, liens tied to Bank Verification Numbers, and reversals of any traceable funds. The obvious question is how much of the ₦13.66 billion is actually still recoverable after all this time.
The bigger concern is what this says about the reliability of Nigeria’s financial infrastructure at a time when digital payments are exploding. Electronic transactions in Nigeria crossed ₦1.07 quadrillion in 2024, with the NIP platform processing trillions of naira every month. NIBSS sits at the centre of almost every interbank transfer, fintech payout, and PoS transaction in the country. At that scale, even a tiny technical failure can translate into billions of naira moving incorrectly. Some recipients may have spent the money without realising it was an error. Others may have knowingly withdrawn or transferred it before restrictions could happen. The courts will likely have to decide where responsibility begins and ends.
This also isn’t the first time Nigeria’s financial systems have suffered high-profile glitches. In 2023, a NIBSS-related issue reportedly worsened a ₦21 billion Flutterwave incident. In 2025 alone, Wema, Keystone, and Union Bank all experienced system failures tied to unauthorised transfers worth billions of naira. GTBank also mistakenly credited customers with ₦1.9 billion in October 2024 after another technical problem. Even this month, NIBSS itself experienced another outage that disrupted bank transfers nationwide, affecting fintechs like LemFi and Carbon. The pattern has become increasingly difficult to dismiss as isolated accidents.
Behind many of these failures are rushed system upgrades, weak integrations with third-party providers, and infrastructure struggling to keep up with Nigeria’s rapidly growing digital economy. As more transactions move online, the risks tied to technical failures are becoming larger and more expensive. In many cases, ordinary customers are the ones left dealing with failed transfers, frozen funds, or unexplained reversals while institutions sort things out behind the scenes. The NIBSS lawsuit is ultimately about recovering money that left the system by mistake, but it also highlights a deeper problem: Nigeria’s payment infrastructure is scaling faster than its ability to fully control what happens when things go wrong.
This 16-year-old Nigerian wants to fix freelancing with AI
Well, it’s Children’s Day, the annual reminder that while many teenagers are still being asked what they want to become, some are already quietly building the future from their bedrooms and school computer labs. One of them is 16-year-old Ibrahim Kolade, a Nigerian teenager who turned frustration with freelance platforms into the idea for an AI-focused work marketplace called Tasknory. Long before university applications and NYSC conversations, Kolade was already teaching himself design, coding, and AI systems while trying to understand why new freelancers struggle so much to get opportunities online.
Victoria Fakiya – Senior Writer
Techpoint Digest
Stop struggling to find your tech career path
Discover in-demand tech skills and build a standout portfolio in this FREE 5-day email course
His first real exposure to technology started at home, helping his father, an accountant, type documents on a computer. But things became more serious in secondary school when his interest in computer practicals caught the attention of a teacher who eventually sponsored him to study desktop publishing at a private training centre in Lagos. There, Kolade learned everything from Microsoft Word and Excel to CorelDRAW and graphic design, eventually graduating as one of the best students and even tutoring others as part of the programme. Around the same period, he began interacting with people at a nearby tech hub focused on freelancing and digital skills, though parts of what he saw made him uncomfortable.
According to him, some of the training around freelancing involved questionable tactics like creating multiple accounts and using identities that weren’t theirs to beat platform systems. Kolade decided he didn’t want to build that way. Instead, with support from his parents, he signed up properly on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com using graphic design as his first skill. But getting work proved almost impossible. The more time he spent on those platforms, the more he realised how difficult visibility was for beginners without ratings or completed projects. At one point, he was even banned from one platform during a client conversation despite believing he had done nothing wrong. That experience eventually planted the idea for Tasknory.
At the time, though, the platform only existed in his head because he still didn’t know how to build software. So he started teaching himself programming through freeCodeCamp, focusing first on responsive web development before later enrolling at ProCode Coding School in Abeokuta to deepen his frontend and backend skills. He moved quickly. After completing frontend development, he immediately began building the first version of Tasknory even before finishing backend classes, initially relying on Supabase and AI-assisted tools before later rebuilding parts of the platform with Django as his backend skills improved.
What makes Kolade’s story interesting isn’t just that he’s 16. It’s that his journey reflects how many young Africans are now approaching technology: not simply as consumers, but as builders trying to solve problems they’ve personally experienced. In his case, the problem was access — how difficult it is for new African freelancers and AI specialists to break into global digital work systems designed around existing reputation and visibility. Whether Tasknory succeeds long-term remains to be seen, but the bigger story is already here: teenagers are no longer waiting for permission to enter Africa’s tech ecosystem. For more information, check out Delight’s latest episode on After Hours.
Ethio Telecom makes history with Ethiopia’s first IPO
Ethiopia’s biggest telecom company just made history. On May 26, 2026, Ethio Telecom officially listed on the Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) under the ticker symbol TELE, becoming the country’s first-ever IPO and the first non-financial company to join the exchange. The listing ceremony took place at the Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa and marked a major shift for a company that had spent 130 years entirely under government ownership. For Ethiopia, a country that only launched its stock exchange in 2023, this is more than a corporate milestone; it’s the beginning of a completely new era for public investing.
The government sold a 10% stake in Ethio Telecom to Ethiopian citizens through a public share offer that attracted tens of thousands of first-time investors. In total, around 45,000 shareholders were fully verified and approved to trade shares on the ESX platform. The company raised about 3.2 billion birr, roughly $20 million, after selling just over 10 million shares. By global IPO standards, that figure may seem small, but for Ethiopia, where public share ownership barely existed until recently, it’s a huge moment. It also instantly changes the ESX from a small banking-focused exchange into something ordinary people can actually relate to.
But even with the excitement, there are already early tensions around what this new ownership structure really means. Ethio Telecom recently posted record revenues of 162 billion birr, and the government declared a 12 billion birr dividend. The problem? None of it went to the new shareholders. Despite now owning 10% of the company, the 45,000 retail investors received no share of the payout, with the entire dividend going to the federal government instead. Another 1,646 investors are also still waiting for their documents to be fully verified before they can participate in trading. These issues may sound administrative, but they’re important because they’ll shape public trust in Ethiopia’s brand-new capital market.
The listing is part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s wider economic reform programme, which has gradually opened up parts of Ethiopia’s once tightly controlled economy since 2019. The Ethiopian Securities Exchange itself only launched publicly in January 2023. Ethio Telecom’s IPO was designed not only to raise money but also to introduce ordinary Ethiopians to investing and public ownership. Interestingly, the government restricted participation strictly to Ethiopian citizens, rejecting hundreds of foreign applications. That approach reflects how carefully Ethiopia is trying to manage this transition while still maintaining strong state control over strategic sectors.
The bigger test now is what happens next. The government still owns 90% of Ethio Telecom, meaning real decision-making power remains firmly in state hands. At the same time, competition in Ethiopia’s telecom sector is heating up, especially with Safaricom Ethiopia growing rapidly since entering the market. Ethio Telecom’s listing gives the company a more modern governance structure and public accountability, but Ethiopia’s new stock market will only gain credibility if retail investors actually feel protected and included. For now, the IPO proves there’s strong public appetite for investing in Ethiopia. The challenge is whether the system being built around that excitement can earn long-term trust.
In case you missed it
- Lagos climbs global startup rankings as Nigeria faces slower ecosystem growth
What I’m watching
- The mind-body connection you never knew you had
- The most profound questions in physics, with Hakeem Oluseyi | Full Interview
Opportunities
- Qore is hiring for several roles. Apply here.
- Didii is recruiting for several roles. Apply here,
- Clarus Technologies, in partnership with Norrsken East Africa, has launched Scale Velocity, a go-to-market accelerator aimed at helping high-potential startups across East Africa refine growth, strengthen commercial systems, and scale faster. Applications for the first cohort are now open, and founders are encouraged to apply. Apply here.
- Moniepoint is recruiting for several roles. Apply here.
- Flutterwave is hiring for several roles in Nigeria, the UK, and the US. Apply here.
- As one of Techpoint Africa’s most engaged readers, you have a direct hand in shaping what we publish next. Take our quick, 3-minute survey to tell us the stories and features you value most. Your responses are anonymous, and your feedback will help guide our editorial focus in the months ahead. Fill the survey here.
- Moniepoint is hiring for over 100 roles. Apply here.
- Building a startup can feel isolating, but with Equity Merchants CommunityConnect? You can network with fellow founders, experts, and investors, gaining valuable insights and exclusive resources to help you grow your business. Click here to join.
- To pitch your startup or product to a live audience, check out this link.
- Follow Techpoint Africa’s WhatsApp channel to stay on top of the latest trends and news in the African tech space here.
Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa
