More than 100 employees have been promoted across its global operations, with one-time economic relief payment also introduced for all staff worldwide. 

In Nigeria, employees will receive additional tax support and cost-of-living adjustments following recent regulatory changes affecting take-home pay.

The decision also results from high living costs across key markets, including Nigeria, where inflation stood at 15.69% in April 2026. 

Food inflation was recorded at 16.06% in the same period. Fuel prices have also surged, with petrol selling at about ₦1,532.93 per litre, adding pressure to transport and daily expenses.

“I often say our people are our secret sauce,” Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Flutterwave founder and CEO said. “They are the ultimate engine behind everything we build, giving us the capacity to create solutions that power businesses, unlock opportunities, and move money seamlessly across Africa and beyond.”

The company said the latest support measures are part of its approach to staff welfare and retention. It added that it wants employees to focus on work without constant financial strain.

Annette Akpolo, head of People and Culture at Flutterwave, said the approach combines individual performance with better staff support.

“Our goal has always been to build an environment where our people can focus on doing their best work, rather than being weighed down by economic anxiety,” Akpolo said. 

“Pairing merit-based individual growth with supporting the collective needs of the whole team are both essential parts of how we build a company culture where people genuinely want to stay and grow over the long term.”

Founded in 2016, Flutterwave marks its tenth year in 2026. The company said it has now processed over 1 billion transactions and moved more than $40 billion in total payment value globally.

Flutterwace also reported strong recent growth, including a 289% increase in wallet-based collections by transaction count and a 184% rise in bank transfer value over the past year. The company attributed this to wider use of local payment methods across its markets.

The announcement comes as Nigeria’s fintech sector competes for skilled talent. Firms such as Paystack and Interswitch are also expanding, while companies adjust pay and benefits to retain staff under rising cost pressures.

At Flutterwave, leadership said growth remains tied to performance and contribution.

“At Flutterwave, growth is earned through meaningful contributions to the business and to the mission we are building together,” Agboola said. “As we continue to grow, the people who will shape our future are those who consistently step up, solve hard problems, support others, and move the company forward.”

The decision comes after months of questions about how the document was prepared and checked before publication.

Cabinet approved the draft policy in March 2026, and government published it in April for public comment.

Questions emerged soon after, when media reports found that several citations did not exist or pointed to journals that never published the work. The findings forced a formal withdrawal of the document on 26 April 2026.

Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi told Parliament that the department missed the problems before they became public.

He said, “The department had not picked up that there were issues with the references in the draft policy document before the events were exposed in news reports,”

Two officials involved in drafting and checking the document have since been suspended. The department also admitted gaps in its internal review process, especially around how sources were verified before publication.

Malatsi said the government moved to contain the damage after the issue became public. He stated, “It was then that we got the responses to protect the integrity of the policy development process and, obviously, the stain that it has caused not just on the department but also on the government’s overall process of formulating and finalising policy,”

On 14 May 2026, the government appointed an independent panel to rebuild the policy framework. The group is chaired by Professor Benjamin Rosman of the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand.

It includes Professor Vukosi Marivate, Professor Alison Gillwald, Heather Irvine, Dr Tshepo Feela, cybersecurity specialist Jabu Mtsweni, and cyber lawyer Lufuno Tshikalange.

Officials expect the revised framework to go back for public comment in January 2027. Until then, South Africa will remain without a formal national AI policy, even as both government and private firms continue to deploy AI systems in daily operations.

The episode has led to queries about oversight in policy development and the growing use of generative AI in official work.

It also places South Africa in a tighter race with countries such as Kenya and Nigeria, which are advancing their own national AI strategies.

Attention has currently shifted to whether the new panel can restore confidence and produce a framework that holds up to standards, both locally and across the continent.

The project, announced in May 2024 during President William Ruto’s visit to Washington, was expected to become one of the biggest digital infrastructure investments in East Africa. 

Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-based G42 planned to build the facility in Olkaria, near Naivasha, using geothermal power. It was also meant to host Microsoft’s first Azure cloud region in East Africa.

However, negotiations later became difficult after Microsoft and G42 asked the Kenyan government to guarantee annual payments for part of the data centre’s computing capacity. 

According to reports from Bloomberg, Kenya could not provide guarantees at the level the companies requested, and discussions on the Microsoft data centre project stalled.

The delay has now raised wider concerns about whether Kenya’s current infrastructure can support hyperscale data centres and growing artificial intelligence workloads.

At full scale, the facility was expected to require around 1 gigawatt of electricity. That is close to one-third of Kenya’s current installed power capacity, which stands between 3,000 and 3,200 megawatts.

President Ruto had earlier warned about the pressure such a facility could place on the country’s grid.

“To switch on that one data centre, we would need to shut off power for half the country.”

Kenyan officials say the project has not been abandoned. John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Information, said discussions are still ongoing, although the structure and scale of the project is still under review.

“The scale of the data centre they wanted to do still requires some structuring,” he said, while adding that power requirements are still under discussion.

The government now wants to expand Kenya’s electricity capacity to 10,000 megawatts by 2030 as it pushes to attract more large-scale technology investments.

Officials are also considering a phased rollout, beginning with a smaller 100-megawatt facility before expanding gradually. That approach could reduce immediate stress on the national grid while allowing Kenya to continue negotiations with Microsoft and G42.

The uncertainty around the project also reveals a bigger challenge facing African countries trying to attract global cloud and AI investments. 

While demand for digital infrastructure is growing with speed, many countries still lack the power generation and transmission capacity needed to support energy-intensive facilities.

The delay could also affect the rollout of Microsoft Azure services across East Africa, including cloud tools tied to products such as OneDrive and Copilot.

Neither Microsoft nor G42 immediately responded to requests for comment on the reported Kenya data centre dispute.

Total payouts to creators was over $26 million (roughly ₦11 billion), up from ₦9.8 billion in 2024. 

These show that digital commerce for creators is a rapidly maturing space, and the platform you choose can make or break your revenue, your reach, and your workflow.

This article compares Selar and Flutterwave Store across three critical pillars, including creator monetisation, checkout conversion, and catalogue flexibility, so you can see which platform fits your needs best in 2026.

Creator Monetisation: Built for Creators vs. General Commerce

Selar is purpose‑built for creators. It isn’t just a storefront but a creator-first ecosystem designed for selling digital products, memberships, and services. 

By late 2025, Selar’s payout achievements and growing creator base showed faster monetisation. Its core strengths include:

• Multi-tier plans that provide advanced selling tools
• Integrated affiliate networks to increase reach and sales
• Automated tools for subscriptions, bundles, and recurring payments

From my perspective, Selar has gone far beyond helping creators sell to enhancing how revenue scales, letting you expand without juggling multiple tools.

Flutterwave Store, on the other hand, sits within Flutterwave’s payments infrastructure. It enables merchants to set up online stores quickly and accept payments globally, but it’s not designed specifically for creators. 

While it supports digital product sales, features like affiliate mechanics, subscription workflows, or creator‑specific monetisation paths are minimal.

So:

• Selar comes first if you prioritise creator revenue growth and digital product monetisation.
• Flutterwave Store works if you need a general commerce solution that can handle both digital and physical goods.

Checkout Conversion: From Click to Sale

The checkout experience can make or break a sale. Selar’s checkout is lean and designed for digital goods, keeping buyers on a single page with automated delivery once payment is confirmed. 

Multiple local and international payment gateways ensure friction is minimal.

Flutterwave Store leverages Flutterwave’s reliable payment infrastructure, covering cards, bank transfers, mobile money, and more. 

The checkout is technically solid but less tailored for digital products, meaning creators may need extra tools to handle delivery, subscriptions, or automated follow-ups.

In essence:

• Selar has the edge for digital product conversion, keeping the path from cart to delivery smooth.
• Flutterwave Store is solid for wider commerce but not optimised for creator-focused sales funnels.

Catalogue Flexibility: One Product or Many

Digital creators usually juggle multiple formats: ebooks, courses, templates, music, memberships, and bundles.

Selar accommodates this complexity. Its catalogue system supports bundles, affiliate tracking, automated content delivery, and flexible product presentation, all tailored for digital creators.

Flutterwave Store can list multiple products and variants, with basic descriptions and sales tracking. It’s great for physical goods and simple service offerings but lacks advanced digital-specific catalogue features, like drip content or subscription management.

Hence:

• Selar is far more flexible for digital product management.
• Flutterwave Store is great for general product listings but is less sophisticated for digital creators.

Head-to-Head Comparison Table

If you’re a creator whose main revenue stream is digital products, Selar provides the tools, infrastructure, and proven track record to grow consistently. 

The 2.2 million users and over $26 million in payouts by 2025 illustrate just how serious and scalable the platform is.

If you want a flexible commerce engine capable of handling both digital and physical products, Flutterwave Store is highly reliable, with unmatched payment infrastructure. 

It fits sellers who value broad commerce reach over digital product optimisation.

Bottom line, Flutterwave Store or Selar?

• Creators focusing on digital product sales → Selar
• Sellers blending digital and physical products → Flutterwave Store

The transaction ties Africa’s largest payments company to the country’s most widely used open banking platform at a time when regulation, scale and survival are changing the fintech sector. 

People familiar with the deal say Mono’s investors will at least recover their capital, while some early backers walk away with returns of up to 20 times. Mono will continue to run as a standalone product.

Mono was founded in 2020 to solve a basic problem most African fintechs face, which is that banks do not easily share data. Through its APIs, customers can give consent for businesses to access bank information, verify accounts, analyse income and spending, and trigger payments. 

In a market where credit bureaus are thin and formal credit history is rare, transaction data has become the backbone of digital lending.

That model worked. Mono raised about $17.5 million from investors including Tiger Global, General Catalyst and Target Global. Its chief executive, Abdulhamid Hassan, says almost every digital lender in Nigeria now depends on Mono’s pipes. 

The company says it has enabled more than eight million bank account connections, reaching roughly 12% of Nigeria’s banked population, and has delivered around 100 billion data points to lenders. Its client list includes Visa-backed Moniepoint and GIC-backed PalmPay.

For Flutterwave, the logic is different but just as direct. The company already handles local and cross-border payments across more than 30 African countries. 

In March 2025, it raised $250 million in a Series D round that valued it at $3 billion, cementing its position as Africa’s most valuable startup. It also processed $31 billion in transactions in 2024. Payments alone, however, are no longer enough.

By acquiring Mono, Flutterwave moves deeper into onboarding, identity checks, bank verification, data-led risk assessment, and one-off or recurring bank payments, all within a single stack. This is more important now because Nigeria, its biggest market, has finally switched on open banking.

In August 2025, the Central Bank of Nigeria approved the country’s open banking framework, making Nigeria the first African nation to formally operationalise it. Banks are now required to share customer data through standardised APIs, as long as users give consent. That turns what Mono has been building quietly for years into regulated national infrastructure.

Flutterwave’s chief executive, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, describes the deal as a long-term play on how African finance will work. “Payments, data, and trust cannot exist in silos,” he said. “Open banking provides the connective tissue, and Mono has built critical infrastructure in this space.”

Hassan agrees that the timing is important. He argues that Africa is moving into a phase where credit, not just payments, will drive financial inclusion. But credit only works if lenders truly understand how people earn and spend, and if regulators trust the systems handling that data.

“If the economy is going to be credit-driven, you need deep data intelligence to know how people earn and spend,” Hassan said. “But at the same time, for open banking to really work, regulators need to be confident that customer funds are safe.”

That confidence is still forming. Open banking regulations across Africa are still uneven, and adoption will not happen overnight. 

However, joining Flutterwave gives Mono reach it could not easily build on its own. Flutterwave already operates with licences, compliance teams and enterprise customers across dozens of markets. When regulatory barriers fall, Mono’s tools can scale faster without rebuilding that groundwork country by country.

“This allows us to expand what’s possible for businesses operating across African markets while staying grounded in security, compliance, and local relevance,” Agboola said.

The deal also aligns with a change in African fintech. For years, startups chased the dream of becoming standalone giants. Funding was cheap, growth was rewarded, and consolidation was rare. That world has shifted. Capital is tighter. Regulation is heavier. Scale now matters more than ambition.

In South Africa, Lesaka Technologies bought payments firm Adumo for $96 million in 2024, pulling two major players into one platform. Analysts see Flutterwave and Mono following the same strategy, integration instead of isolation. Globally, the logic is familiar. 

Visa’s attempted $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid in 2020, though blocked by US regulators, showed how valuable it can be to combine payment rails with data infrastructure.

Mono’s own journey reveals how competitive the space once was. When it launched, it faced companies like Okra and Stitch. Okra shut down in 2025. Stitch pivoted deeper into payments and raised more capital, changing its focus. That left Mono as the clear leader in Nigerian open banking APIs.

Hassan insists Mono was not pushed into a sale. According to PitchBook, the company raised $15 million in a Series A round in 2021 at a $50 million post-money valuation. 

He says Mono is well aligned to reach profitability this year and still has cash in the bank. Raising another round, he adds, would have meant fresh valuation pressure in a tough market.

There is also a shared history. Both companies are backed by Tiger Global, which led Flutterwave’s Series C and Mono’s Series A. Hassan says Tiger did not broker the deal. Instead, it grew from years of collaboration, with Flutterwave and Mono already working together on bank payment products long before acquisition talks began.

African fintech is entering a more mature phase. Infrastructure is consolidating and regulation is meeting up. 

By every global statistic, the continent is digitally switched on. But then, over 70% of its small businesses still cannot access proper finance or usable digital tools. 

We can stream, scan, tap, and swipe, but millions of founders still cannot fund growth or scale operations. That contradiction defines this moment.

Small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 95% of African businesses, generate roughly 40% of GDP, and employ over half of the workforce. The mobile sector alone already contributes more than $140 billion to sub-Saharan Africa’s economy. 

Add to this a population where over 60% are under the age of 25, and the picture becomes clear. Demand is not the problem. Infrastructure is not the problem. Leadership is the differentiator.

2026 is the year where surface-level innovation gives way to execution. The first wave of technology built rails, wallets, and connectivity. The next wave must bring credit that works, platforms that hold up under pressure, products people trust, and systems that serve the informal and formal economy equally. This work is quieter, slower, and far more difficult.

The people featured in this list are operating inside that gap. They are not reacting to growth but are organising it. Across finance, platforms, design, security, public systems, and digital services, these leaders are standing to enhance how Africa’s technology actually functions, not just how it is marketed.

These are the emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026, because while the continent is busy counting connections, they are building results. 

In no particular order, they include:

1. Adeshina Adewumi

If Africa’s next chapter of growth will still be driven by small businesses, then the people in the background, fixing access to money deserve close attention. Adeshina Adewumi is one of them. 

We see his work as infrastructure in motion. After more than a decade across banking, asset management, and digital ventures, he now operates at the point where policy goal meets street-level execution. 

His experience at institutions like Stanbic IBTC gave him structure. His ventures gave him speed. The result is a founder who understands both the limits of traditional finance and the urgency of replacing it with something that actually works for SMEs.

At Trade Lenda, Adewumi is not just building a fintech product; he is building trust at scale. A community of over 260,000 SMEs does not grow by marketing alone. It grows because the platform solves a relatable problem, which is access to credit, insurance, and micro savings for businesses that banks routinely ignore. 

What makes this worth watching in 2026 is not the size of the network, but the model behind it. Data-driven credit decisions, mobile-first delivery, and partnerships that strengthen SME bankability rather than trap founders in debt cycles. This is why global recognition, from the Milken-Motsepe Prize in FinTech to IFC and EY awards, keeps following his work.

What elevates Adewumi into the emerging leader bracket is range. Through One Kiosk Africa, he is also tackling retail inefficiencies by connecting small merchants, supermarkets, and farmers directly to digital markets. 

Few founders operate confidently at the intersection of finance, retail technology, and trade policy. Fewer still sit on international trade bodies while building tools for market women and shop owners. 

He believes that Africa’s sustainability will be funded by structured, inclusive financing that allows MSMEs to grow on their own terms. By 2026, that philosophy may well impact how financial inclusion is measured across the continent.

2. Joshua Esiebo

That next chapter we talk about in Africa’s tech growth will not be driven only by startups. It will also be built inside large institutions that are reinventing themselves. Joshua Esiebo sits at that critical junction. 

At MTN, Africa’s largest telecoms group, his work as a senior manager in platforms management directly influences how millions experience digital services every day. His role is not limited to products, but more about direction, guiding a telecom giant away from pure connectivity and into a fully formed digital ecosystem.

Across Ayoba, MyMTN eMarketplace, MTN Play, and premium content platforms, Esiebo operates where technology, partnerships, and customer experience overlap. Platforms fail or scale based on governance, integration, and usability, so, you can tell how important his work is.

His focus on platform thinking, bringing content, payments, gaming, and data into coherent systems, is exactly what MTN needs as it executes its Ambition 2025 strategy and looks beyond it. By 2026, the success of MTN’s digital services will depend heavily on how well these platforms work together, not just how many users they attract.

What makes Esiebo one of the emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026 is his ecosystem mindset. He builds with partners, not around them. OTT providers, fintech players, content creators, and startups all plug into systems designed for scale and reliability. 

Importantly, his work prioritises accessibility, ensuring platforms serve both urban and rural users without friction. This customer-first discipline is usually talked about and rarely enforced. As MTN strengthens its drive into fintech and digital lifestyle services, Esiebo represents a new class of African tech leader, platform-driven, partnership-led, and quietly influential.

3. Emmanuel Olorundare

Great technology fails without good design. Emmanuel Olorundare has built a career proving the opposite. When design is done right, products travel, scale, and stay resilient. 

A senior product designer, creative technologist, and startup co-founder, his work already spans Europe, Africa, the UK, and now North America.

He has built digital products that do not just scale geographically, but culturally. His influence is heavy on how complex systems are turned into simple, usable experiences that millions rely on daily.

As Co-founder of Gupta, supporting over 3,000 businesses globally, Olorundare operates at the sharp end of product execution. His fingerprints are also on platforms like AfriPay, which simplifies international payments for African students and migrants, and ShipAfrica, now active in over 200 countries. 

These are not design exercises but operational products solving payment friction, logistics complexity, and trust gaps across borders. Add to this Jami, a UK-based social platform focused on worthy connections, and we see a pattern;  Olorundare builds products where human behaviour, technology, and scale collide.

What places him among emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026 is depth. His experience spans fintech, logistics, edtech, civic platforms, and AI-powered applications, yet his approach remains grounded in human-centred thinking. 

Beyond delivery, he is building future talent through mentorship across more than ten countries and UK-certified design education programmes. With an engineering-informed mindset and a designer’s instinct, he brings clarity to chaos and momentum to ideas. 

Design leadership is the difference between products people tolerate and products they trust. Emmanuel Olorundare understands this better than most.

4. Ogechi Okwechime

Some leaders build products. Others build markets. Ogechi Okwechime does both, and that is why she belongs on any serious watchlist for 2026. With more than fifteen years across banking and fintech, she has mastered the hard part of innovation in Africa, which is turning complex infrastructure into something businesses can actually use. 

At Interswitch, as Divisional Head of Growth Marketing for Enterprise Solutions, she operates behind the scenes of systems backing payments, preventing fraud, and keeping commerce moving at scale.

What makes her unique is her ability to turn technical depth into commercial momentum. When Verve needed to move beyond national relevance, Okwechime helped drive the strategy that transformed it into a truly African card scheme, active in over 22 countries. 

This was not expansion for clout. It was functional growth. Cards that worked across borders. Users who could shop on international platforms. Local consumers plugged into the global digital economy without friction. That alone changed how African payments are perceived.

Her record before Interswitch holds the same depth. At Access Bank, she helped launch digital loan products that reached over 50,000 borrowers. At Fidelity Bank, she scaled Instant Banking from nothing to more than 600,000 users. These are adoption numbers that reflect trust.

By 2026, as enterprise fintech solutions become more urgent to Africa’s economic plumbing, leaders like Okwechime, who combine product-led growth with disciplined execution, will define who wins and who fades.

5. Wallace Omobhude

Africa’s digital sustainability will be determined by how well large platforms understand entertainment, data, and youth culture. Wallace Omobhude is already deep in that work. 

At MTN Nigeria, he leads strategy for digital services with a focus on video and gaming, two verticals that sit at the centre of attention, engagement, and new revenue models. This is where telecoms stop selling data and start owning digital experiences.

Omobhude operates at a difficult confluence of product teams, marketing, regulators, and external content partners all pulling in different directions. His strength lies in alignment. OTT partnerships, VAS integrations, and regulatory compliance are handled with the same discipline as go-to-market execution. 

The result is platforms that scale without disorder. His work feeds directly into MTN’s diversification strategy, opening up entertainment-led revenue streams in a market where youth demographics are impossible to ignore.

Why watch him in 2026? Because MTN’s next phase depends on leaders who understand ecosystems. Omobhude’s data-driven approach, combined with sharp consumer insight, positions MTN to capture value far beyond connectivity. 

Gaming, video, and digital content are not side projects anymore. They are core to how Africa’s largest telecom stays relevant. Leaders who can build and govern these platforms will impact the industry’s direction. Wallace is already doing that work.

6. Nnaemeka Ani

Every tech ecosystem needs builders who think beyond products and into purpose. Nnaemeka Ani is one of those rare figures. He does not go after trends. He dismantles problems to their core and rebuilds from first principles. 

As Founder of MGX Research Centre and MexyGabriel Tech Company, Ani operates across research, infrastructure, policy, and execution, a combination that gives his work unusual depth and national relevance.

MGX Research is not a think tank for theory’s sake. It is a working laboratory focused on deployable systems across data science, cybersecurity, digital identity, smart cities, education, health, robotics, and automation. 

Ani believes that Africa’s growth will not come from borrowed solutions, but from systems designed for local realities and owned locally. This philosophy drives his push for digital sovereignty and African-built data infrastructure, turning code into both social and commercial value.

His influence expands into governance. As Special Adviser on ICT to the Enugu State Governor, Ani is proving that technology and public policy do not have to operate in parallel worlds. His work in Enugu shows what happens when political will meets technical clarity, resulting in better services, smarter systems, and a functional digital ecosystem. 

With Nigeria approaching major milestones in broadband expansion and tax reform in 2026, Ani represents a new kind of leader, part technologist, part reformer, fully invested in nation-building. He is one of the emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026 not because he speaks loudly, but because his work changes structures.

7. Abraham Oghenero Efemena

Scale is usually discussed loosely in tech. Abraham Oghenero Efemena treats it as discipline. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Apex Web Network Limited who has built a fintech platform operating across Africa and key European markets, with a focus on structure, resilience, and growth.

His leadership style is more operational than performative. Systems first. Expansion second. Noise last.

Reaching 300,000 active users in 2025 is not a small win. It shows product trust across borders, regulatory environments, and user behaviour patterns. That kind of traction only happens when infrastructure works quietly and consistently. 

Efemena oversees every moving part of Apex Web Network, ensuring teams, technology, and market strategy move in sync. This hands-on leadership is essential in fintech, where failure usually comes from weak internal alignment rather than bad ideas.

Why is he among the emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026? Because the next phase goes beyond surviving to controlled expansion. As Apex Web Network grows its user base and deepens its footprint, Efemena is building the company to compete in markets where compliance, security, and user experience determine winners. He represents a class of founders building for longevity.

8. Victor Daniyan

Payments are the bloodstream of any digital economy. Victor Daniyan understands this, and he is rebuilding how that system works across Africa. 

The CEO and Founder of Nearpays is pushing payment acceptance away from hardware-heavy models and into scalable, software-led infrastructure. We could call his work foundational, because when payments become easier, entire ecosystems are opened.

Nearpays has received recognition from EY, TechCabal, BusinessDay, and global platforms such as GITEX and the UN AI for Good Innovation Factory. The startup is empowering over 50,000 users through contactless and Soft POS solutions. 

Daniyan’s leadership sits on applied innovation and real-world adoption, proving that inclusion works best when technology fades into the background.

Looking forward to 2026, the company is entering its scale phase, with expansion in Nigeria and Ghana, stronger collaboration with Visa, and a focus on usability. Victor Daniyan stands among emerging leaders in tech to watch in 2026 because he is not just building a fintech product, but changing how businesses participate in the digital economy. That impact will only grow.

9. Peter Ndukwo

Every digital system is only as strong as the people testing its limits. Peter Ndukwo lives at that edge. As a Web3 Security Researcher and Smart Contract Auditor, his work protects some of the most valuable and complex decentralised systems in the world. When security fails, innovation collapses.

His record speaks; Audits on Chainlink, ZetaChain, and Brevis Pico. Multiple high-severity vulnerabilities discovered solo. Over 30 competitive audit wins across Sherlock and Code4rena. These are not academic exercises, they secure billions in value and protect users. 

Beyond these, his work at Zippel Labs places him inside zero-knowledge systems and cryptographic research driving the next generation of blockchain infrastructure.

Why he is placed among emerging tech leaders to watch in 2026 is not far-fetched. With decentralised systems becoming more complex, the cost of failure increases. Ndukwo is securing protocols and also mentoring African security researchers, as well as building tools to automate vulnerability discovery. 

He represents a system where Africa goes beyond using just decentralised systems to actively safeguarding and enhancing them.

10. Oluwatomi Alagbe

Security leadership today demands more than defence. It demands foresight. Oluwatomi Alagbe, one of the emerging tech leaders to watch in 2026, brings that perspective. Based in Tallinn and working at the convergence of cybersecurity, crypto, and advanced research systems, his career shows depth rather than drift. His strength is seen in how he turns complex risk into systems people can actually trust.

From protecting users at Malwarebytes to contributing to Caesar’s deep research platform, Alagbe’s work centres on resilience. He does not chase threats reactively; he builds frameworks that anticipate them. 

His experience across AI-driven systems and crypto environments gives him a rare interdisciplinary view, one that is becoming more important as boundaries between sectors blur.

What makes 2026 pivotal is what he is building next. Razzle, an AI-native communication platform, challenges how teams collaborate by placing intelligent systems at the core, not the edges. 

Alongside this, his continued work at Caesar focuses on reliability and real-world applicability, not abstraction. Alagbe is unique because he understands that trust is the currency of the next digital era, and security is how that trust is earned.

The data places Nigeria at the centre of a continental problem. While Africa’s digital economy is expanding speedily, security readiness is struggling to keep pace. 

Across the continent, organisations recorded an average of 3,153 cyberattacks per week, compared with 1,963 globally, putting Africa among the most targeted regions in the world.

In Nigeria, the financial sector is the main target. Banks, payment platforms, and fintech firms continue to face heavy pressure from phishing, business email compromise, and credential theft. 

Telecoms, energy, and healthcare operators are also seeing growing exposure as cloud services, mobile platforms, and connected devices are rolled out faster than security controls can mature.

The unique part is not just volume, but method. Across Africa, 77% of organisations were affected by information disclosure incidents, meaning sensitive data was exposed through misconfigurations, weak access controls, or unsecured systems. 

Email is the most effective entry point, responsible for 80% of malicious file delivery, showing that basic weaknesses are still being exploited at scale.

Ransomware has also changed shape. The report shows that 41% of major incidents in Africa now involve data-leak extortion, where attackers steal information and threaten public exposure rather than relying solely on system encryption. 

This approach increases reputational damage and regulatory risk, even when core operations remain running.

In Nigeria, identity theft, stolen session tokens, and API abuse are now more common than traditional malware attacks. In simple terms, attackers are logging in using valid credentials instead of forcing their way through defences.

Beyond Nigeria, several African countries are facing high pressure when it comes to cyberattacks. Kenya recorded 3,758 attacks per organisation each week, while South Africa, Morocco, and other markets continue to see heavy targeting of government services, education systems, and telecom infrastructure.

The operational cost of these attacks is rising. African organisations take an average of 18 days to detect and contain a breach, six days longer than the global average. The report links this delay to skills shortages, fragmented tools, and limited incident response capacity across many sectors.

High-profile incidents in 2025 underline the risk. Data exposure at Seychelles Commercial Bank, service disruption at South African Airways, and unauthorised access to customer data at MTN South Africa all followed a similar pattern: customer-facing systems were targeted, investigations were triggered, and trust became the real casualty.

Regulation is now increasing the pressure. With Europe enforcing stricter cybersecurity regulations under the NIS2 directive, African companies that trade with EU partners are expected to prove strong cyber controls as a condition for market access. Security, the report notes, has become a commercial requirement, not a back-office concern.

From Nigeria to the rest of the continent, Africa’s digital growth is speeding up, but attackers are moving just as fast. 

Cybersecurity in Africa has gone beyond preparing for future risks. The threat is already here, and for countries like Nigeria, the cost of inaction is becoming impossible to ignore.

Taking place in Cape Town on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, the competition will see one startup walk away with a $50,000 equity investment and access to a global network of mentors and investors.

The announcement follows two days of rigorous semi-final pitches held on October 28 and 29, where young innovators from eight African countries showcased products bolstering financial technology across the continent. 

Ten startups stood out for their creativity, impact potential, and market readiness.

The finalists include:

1. mystocks.africa (Botswana);
2. Credify Africa Inc (Uganda);
3. Logistify AI (Kenya)
4. Kutana Technologies Ltd (Ghana);
5. Investa Farm (Kenya);
6. Black Swan (Mauritius);
7. Mighty Finance Solution Inc (Zambia);
8. Devdraft AI (Zambia);
9. Kanzu Finance Ltd (Uganda); and
10. Farmsky (Kenya).

According to Ashwin Ravichandran, Portfolio Advisor and MAC lead at MEST Africa, this year’s cohort represents a new phase of African innovation. “Each year, the Challenge grows not only in reach but in the depth of innovation it attracts. We’re seeing founders build financial systems that are inclusive, intelligent, and unmistakably African. The Top 10 exemplify the kind of purposeful innovation driving Africa’s next wave of growth.”

Now in its seventh year, the MEST Africa Challenge focuses on FinTech ventures and startups embedding financial solutions into technology systems. 

The 2025 edition covers eight of Absa’s nine priority markets, which include Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Uganda, and Zambia, targeting businesses that enhance financial inclusion and digital transformation.

For Absa, the partnership shows its drive to enhance banking through technology. “Our ambition is to reimagine financial services through technology, and the innovations presented by these FinTechs showcase what’s possible,” said Tamu Dutuma, head of Strategy and Transformation for Technology at Absa Regional Operations (ARO). 

“Many of the solutions are directly relevant to our business, with the potential to enhance customer experience, drive efficiency, and accelerate transformation. We’re excited about the opportunity to turn some of these ideas into meaningful partnerships that deliver value at scale.”

MEST Africa’s long-standing focus on entrepreneurship development has impacted the continent’s tech sector since 2008, having trained over 2,000 entrepreneurs and invested in more than 90 startups.

“What stands out in the Top 10 is how digital innovation is being applied to real market challenges,” said Tawanda Chatikobo, head of Digital – ARO RBB. “From AI-driven insights to seamless payments, these solutions demonstrate how technology can unlock access, efficiency, and financial inclusion. Digital solutions are no longer a luxury – they have become an imperative for the financial sector.”

The 2025 MEST Africa Challenge finale will support the organisation’s mission to enable scalable African ventures, helping them transform industries and drive inclusive growth across the continent.

Trixie noted the unique spirit of Nigerian entrepreneurs, contrasting them with those in developed economies.

According to her, while startups in Silicon Valley innovate out of convenience or ambition, those in Nigeria build solutions born out of necessity, solutions forged in the face of power shortages, currency fluctuations, and infrastructure gaps. 

“In Nigeria, startups innovate to survive. That is why they scale faster and endure longer,” she said. “Survival itself is the foundation of their innovation.”

GITEX NIGERIA, making its first appearance in Lagos, can’t be limited in description as a conference, she noted. With over 650 startups, 100 major tech companies, 200 investors from 40 countries, and the support of the Nigerian government and NITDA, the event is designed to draw the world’s attention to Africa’s largest economy.

Trixie described Lagos as a “mega high-speed testbed for technology,” pointing to its 20 million residents as live beta testers for innovators. “If you can survive Lagos, your product can survive anywhere in the world,” she said. 

She also stressed that unlike many cities that lean on existing infrastructure, Nigerian startups usually build industries from scratch, a fact that has positioned the country at the top in fintech globally, with solutions that inspire entrepreneurs across continents. “In other markets, they adapt from infrastructure. Here, they create the infrastructure itself,” she explained.

Importantly, she cautioned against expecting instant wins. “This is not a sprint, it is a marathon,” she said, noting that most will not walk away with immediate funding. “80 to 90% of startups will fail. That is the harsh truth, but even failure comes with value, lessons, relationships, mentorship, and clarity.”

The biggest wins from GITEX will be the insights entrepreneurs gain by measuring themselves against global companies, pointing to opportunities for product benchmarking, market fit testing, and understanding interoperability with global systems. 

“Whether it’s aligning with Oracle, integrating with Space42 from the UAE, or refining their pitches to match global standards, these are lessons that only exposure at GITEX can provide,” she said.

“Please do not judge the aesthetics of where startups are operating from. Judge the resilience and ingenuity within those environments,” she said.

The EVP also addressed doubts about bringing GITEX to Nigeria. “Why Nigeria? Because we don’t do convenience. We don’t do easy. We are here to provide access to communities that have been underserved for too long,” she asserted, calling on investors and global partners to recognise the sincerity, passion, and ingenuity of Nigerian entrepreneurs.

With Lagos recently ranked as the fastest-growing emerging startup hub in the world, overtaking Mumbai, Bangalore, São Paulo, and Istanbul, Trixie reaffirmed the city’s place as a rising star in the global tech ecosystem. “You didn’t just join the list, you went straight to the top,” she stated

This is not GITEX NIGERIA joining the global ecosystem, it is the global ecosystem turning its attention to Nigeria. “You are not looking outward; the world is coming inward to meet you,” she emphasised.

The monthly fee will move from €10.99 to €11.99 ($14.05), covering South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.

The change comes less than two years after the company’s last increase. For Spotify, this is part of its goal to expand profitability and drive its initiative towards one billion global users. 

The Swedish streaming giant currently counts 696 million monthly active users and 276 million paying subscribers.

Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer, told the Financial Times: “Price increases and price adjustments and so on, that’s part of our business toolbox and we’ll do it when it makes sense.”

Over the past year, Spotify has tightened operations, cutting costs through layoffs and scaling back on expensive podcast deals. Those decisions, alongside subscription growth, helped the company deliver its first annual profit in 2024 and record a 31.5% gross margin in the second quarter of 2025. Free cash flow now stands at €700 million, a turnaround after years of losses.

Alongside the price rise, Spotify is betting heavily on product innovation. Recent features include AI-powered playlist customisation, a virtual DJ tool, and audiobook integration. These are designed not just to improve listening but also to make users less likely to cancel, even when prices climb.

In Africa, Premium subscriptions will now cost R69.99 per month in South Africa, roughly on par with rivals Apple Music and YouTube Music. Analysts say this alignment in pricing shows Spotify’s intent to defend its market share, especially in mobile-first regions where streaming adoption is still rising quickly.

Spotify already controls about 65% of the global music streaming market and 45% of paid subscriptions outside China and Russia, according to Luminate. Analysts believe the new features and improved personalisation will help absorb the impact of higher costs for subscribers, ensuring Spotify maintains its lead as the dominant global music platform.