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Ride-hailing
Nigeria’s consumer protection watchdog is investigating Uber’s abrupt exit
People have been calling it the “Uber rapture.” One minute, the app was there, and the next, riders in Nigeria opened it to find no trips available. Now, Nigeria’s competition and antitrust regulator wants to know what happened and whether Uber left some unfinished business behind.
What happened? Nigeria’s Federal Competition & Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says it is probing Uber’s abrupt exit from Nigeria on September 2, particularly whether customers were left with unfulfilled services. This could mean that if you were caught mid-trip when the breakup email went out, there might be some problems.
Explain like I’m new here: The US-based ride-hailing giant shut down its Nigerian operations last week, ending a 12-year run in the country. Uber also exited Uganda and announced a planned company-wide layoff that would affect 3,300 employees.
The commission has not accused Uber of breaking any law yet; it is trying to establish whether Uber’s abrupt switch-off left Nigerian customers with unresolved obligations and whether the company met its consumer-protection responsibilities before packing up.
There is a bigger precedent here: If companies can switch off a service overnight and simply move on, that creates one standard for entering a market and another for leaving it. Uber may be the company under the microscope today, but how this ends could set the tone for every platform that comes to Nigeria, builds a customer base, and one day decides it is time to leave.
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Streaming
Netflix and WhatsApp caught in regulatory crosshairs in South Africa
South Africa’s communications regulator is coming for streaming and online entertainment platforms.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the country’s communications regulator, has launched an inquiry into the impact of streaming and messaging services—over-the-top (OTT) platforms—such as Netflix, WhatsApp, and other Internet-based services that are seemingly competing with traditional broadcasters and telecom operators.
Explain like I’m new here: OTT services are basically the apps that deliver content over the Internet instead of through traditional broadcasters or telecom networks. Think Netflix instead of DStv, WhatsApp instead of SMS. The catch is that while they ride on infrastructure built by local operators, they generally aren’t regulated in quite the same way.
Catch up: For months, industry lobby groups, including South Africa’s Association of Communications & Technology (ACT), whose members include MTN and Vodacom, have been asking the regulator to review the impact of OTT platforms. They’ve long argued that telecom operators invest heavily in expanding fibre networks and broadband access for consumers, only for streaming platforms to rely on that infrastructure, offer their own services, and take a share of the market.
Why now? This is where things get spicy. Telecom operators have been pushing the “Fair Share” argument: if Netflix, WhatsApp, and their peers generate enormous amounts of traffic, shouldn’t they contribute to the networks carrying all that traffic?
It’s a compelling argument until you remember that consumers already pay operators for the data and connectivity they use to access these services. It’s all business: telecom operators would probably not keep making heavy capital investments in a market where they saw no path to a return. Even if they choose to play the long game, that return is still the goal.
That makes this a divisive argument. Do telecom operators have a point, or is the consumer’s need for more options being overlooked? And if these foreign OTT businesses pay their taxes, is that enough commitment to the market, or should there be other ways to compensate?
Zoom out: It’s up to the South African regulator to be the judge and jury here. ICASA’s dog in this fight could also be about giving local broadcasters like the SABC a more level playing field. Its inquiry could become a much bigger fight over who gets to play in South Africa’s digital economy, and under whose rules.
The regulator said the review could take nine months to a year or longer. By then, the question may no longer be whether OTTs have disrupted traditional broadcasting. That ship has sailed. The real question is whether regulation can catch up without making the Internet more expensive or less innovative.
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Capital Market
FSCA fines Altvest executives $564,000 and bans them for 20 years
South Africa’s capital market regulator has fined three senior figures at Africa Bitcoin Corporation (ABC), a Bitcoin treasury company formerly known as Altvest Capital.
On Friday, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) handed the former executives a combined R9 million ($564,000) penalty for manipulating the company’s shares in 2022, banning all three of them from the financial sector for 20 years.
According to local publication TechCentral, the three executives—the company’s chief executive officer Warren Wheatley, his wife and the company’s media and investment relations head Tatum Keshwar-Wheatley, and chief investment officer Akshay Karan—have since stepped down or have been suspended from their roles at the company.
What happened? In its statement, the FSCA said between September 5 and 8, 2022, Wheatley, Keshwar-Wheatley, and Karan coordinated trades that artificially inflated Altvest’s share price or created a false impression of demand and trading activity. Wheatley and his wife were also trading through companies that collectively owned 51% of Altvest at the time, the regulator said.
Explain like I’m new here: Africa Bitcoin Corporation is a South African-listed financial company, originally an SME-lending firm that reinvented itself around Bitcoin in 2025. The company is now building a Bitcoin treasury strategy, buying and storing Bitcoin and holding it on its balance sheet for the long-term, and giving retail and institutional investors a way to access the cryptocurrency by investing in its shares.
The company has since been listed on South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), and other countries including Namibia, Germany, and the commodities board in the United States.
Zoom out: The timing makes this particularly interesting. The conduct happened years before Altvest became Africa Bitcoin Corporation, but two of the people involved were central to the company. The regulator has not said that ABC or its current Bitcoin business was involved in any wrongdoing, but three former senior figures have now been hit with hefty penalties and 20-year bans.
For a company trying to build investor confidence around a new Bitcoin-focused identity, that history could raise uncomfortable questions and potentially spook some investors. For now, it’s a wait-and-see.
Consumer Tech
Sun King is now making and financing smartphones in Kenya
Sun King made its name by helping Kenyan households access solar products without having to pay the full cost upfront. Now, the off-grid solar company is applying the same model to smartphones.
What happened? Sun King, which raised nearly $200 million in debt and equity funding in 2025, has launched the EZ 3, a smartphone that requires a KES 2,299 ($18) deposit, followed by daily payments of KES 55 ($0.43) for 365 days. By the end of the payment plan, customers will have paid KES 22,374 ($173). The launch comes less than a year after Sun King opened its first African manufacturing facility in Kenya.
Explain like I’m new here: Sun King entered Kenya in 2009 as Greenlight Planet, selling off-grid solar products to households through small, recurring payments that allowed customers to own the products without paying the full cost upfront. That pay-as-you-go financing model became a major part of its business.
In October 2025, it opened a factory in Tatu City, Kenya, with the capacity to produce up to 700,000 units annually. For its next act, it is combining local assembly with the financing and distribution network it has spent years building.
How does buying one work? Sun King is selling access to the phones through a financing contract. You enter a financing agreement, make the deposit, take the phone home, and pay the remaining balance in daily installments. As payments continue, the phone remains usable. This is also Sun King’s second branded smartphone. In February 2026, it launched the EZ 1, which required a KES 2,999 ($23) deposit and KES 60 ($0.46) daily. The EZ 3 is the cheaper sequel.
Welcome to Kenya’s financed-phone wars: Sun King is walking into a busy market. M-KOPA, the Kenyan-born asset-financing company, has built a business around financing smartphones and uses repayment history to offer customers loans, data and device protection. Watu, better known for financing motorcycles and tuk-tuks, also finances Samsung smartphones through its Watu Simu business.
Zoom out: Smartphone and consumer-product financing is becoming more popular in markets where formal credit remains out of reach for many consumers. Sun King is now betting that its phones, payment plan and distribution network can win customers.
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$79,844 |
– 0.21% |
+ 22.89% |
| Ether |
$2,510 |
– 0.18% |
+ 30.89% |
| Teller |
$1.77 |
+ 9.80% |
+ 111.04% |
| Solana |
$105.56 |
– 0.97% |
+ 41.45% |
* Data as of 06.41 AM WAT, September 7, 2026.
Events
- The Building Beyond You Institute will host the second edition of the Building Beyond You Conference on September 25, 2026, at the Eko Convention Center, Lagos. Convened by House of Tara founder Tara Fela-Durotoye, the one-day event will bring together founders, business owners and executives to discuss building companies that can scale beyond their founders, with GTBank co-founder and FATE Foundation Chairman Fola Adeola as the headline keynote speaker. The conference expects 2,500 attendees, up from 1,381 at its sold-out 2025 edition, and will explore succession, governance, leadership and later-stage business transitions. Register here to attend.
Written by: Yemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu
Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade
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