Konnichiwa,
Victoria from Techpoint,
Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
- Competition Commission backs Bank Zero takeover
- Meet the 17-year-old taking on OpenAI
- Why X, ChatGPT, Canva glitched yesterday
Competition Commission backs Bank Zero takeover
The Competition Commission has officially recommended that Lesaka Technologies’ acquisition of Bank Zero be approved, clearing one of the final hurdles for the R1.1-billion deal. If the Tribunal signs off, it marks a new chapter for the digital bank and a major consolidation move in South Africa’s fintech space.
For Bank Zero’s co-founder and chairman, Michael Jordaan, the decision brings his June 2025 buyout offer much closer to reality. The Commission said the deal won’t hurt competition or raise any public-interest concerns, meaning regulators see no major red flags in the takeover.
Once the transaction wraps, Jordaan will stay on as Bank Zero’s chairman, while co-founder Yatin Narsai continues as CEO and the entire management team remains in place. Bank Zero shareholders will also walk away with roughly 12% of Lesaka’s shares, paid through newly issued stock and up to R91 million in cash.
Lesaka has made it clear it wants to fold Bank Zero into its broader fintech platform, creating a single, modern tech stack that brings full banking capability into its ecosystem. The integration is expected to reduce third-party costs, improve the company’s digital infrastructure, and open up cross-border financial products down the line.
On the financial side, Lesaka expects that adding Bank Zero’s deposits and retail base will strengthen its balance sheet, improve lending performance, and help cut down its reliance on expensive bank debt, potentially reducing its gross debt by more than R1 billion.
Meet the 17-year-old taking on OpenAI
At 17, most teenagers are worrying about WAEC results or arguing with their parents about screen time. But Okechukwu Nwaozor? He’s busy trying to build Nigeria’s answer to ChatGPT, and he’s surprisingly unfazed by how wild that sounds.
When he first told Bolu he wanted to create his own LLM, he genuinely had to swallow a laugh. A fresh-out-of-secondary-school, first-time founder, raising funding to take on a multi-billion-dollar Silicon Valley giant? Even he admits it sounds borderline delusional. And apparently, Bolu wasn’t the only one who reacted that way. When he first posted his plans on Facebook, the comments section treated it like premium comedy.
But here’s the part that shut Bolu up: OkeyMeta isn’t a concept, a mood board, or a dream-in-progress. It already works. The chatbot, OkeyAI, confidently insisted it was built from scratch when Bolu tested it. It even listed the exact team behind it, matching everything Okechukwu told him on their call. For a moment, Bolu wondered if a teenager could really pull off something this ambitious.
His inspiration didn’t come from ChatGPT either. It started years ago, with him obsessing over how Google Search delivers results. That curiosity threw him into AI rabbit holes, led him to building early models in 2022, and pushed him through countless experiments, failures, and small wins. By the way, he’s a massive Mark Zuckerberg fan, which explains the name “OkeyMeta,” a mix of his name and Meta’s ethos of “going beyond.”
Against all odds, he’s spent three years assembling a team of undergraduates, training models with whatever data he could find, and stubbornly proving doubters wrong. Whether you think he’s brave or delusional, one thing is clear: he’s building anyway.
You can dive deeper into OkeyMeta’s journey in Bolu’s full story for Techpoint Africa.
Why X, ChatGPT, Canva glitched yesterday
You know how whenever X crashes, everyone runs to WhatsApp to ask, “Is X down or is it just me?” I’m sure you saw that status yesterday. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t just X. ChatGPT, Canva, and a bunch of other major platforms were glitching at the same time, all thanks to a technical meltdown at Cloudflare.
Cloudflare, the company that quietly keeps half the Internet running by securing websites and speeding them up, had a major issue that sent ripples across the web. Users trying to access ChatGPT even got a strange message asking them to “unblock challenges.cloudflare.com.” The company later confirmed that it was facing a widespread problem affecting multiple customers.
The outage got so bad that even DownDetector, the site people rush to when things break, was itself down. It’s the kind of ironic chaos that only the Internet can deliver. And while this Cloudflare issue wasn’t as catastrophic as past outages, it did leave millions confused as their favourite apps went dark, flickered back on, then went down again.
If this felt familiar, it’s because something similar happened in October when AWS had its own drama. A DNS failure in its US-East-1 region disrupted global apps like Snapchat, Roblox, and even Amazon’s own Alexa and Prime Video. Millions were locked out, features disappeared, and the outage rippled across services that depend on AWS.
Cloudflare says services are slowly recovering but warns that some users may still see higher error rates as they continue to investigate. So if your favourite app feels a bit “off,” you’re not imagining it; the Internet’s plumbing is still being fixed behind the scenes.
In case you missed it
- How Nigeria’s National Payment Stack works, why it matters, and what it means for banks, businesses, and consumers
What I’m watching
- Compatibility Explained in 8 Minutes
- The Most Controversial Idea in Biology
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Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa
