Feature/OPED
Africa: Why Startups and Private Universities Failed on Development
By Nneka Okumazie
How many startups in Africa can say that their existence is the reason a major problem was solved in Africa, for the majority of Africans?
Some may easily dismiss this as not being a part of their mandate, but maybe looking at what they do through that lens could make their services more useful to their people.
The startup scene in Africa is full of activities, but there is no evidence that those activities are connected to solving major problems on the continent, as most of the problems that Africa faces are still there, or worse, with little end in sight.
Africans are not solving the problems of Africa. Whenever Africa makes progress, it is often due to external involvement, sometimes with little to nothing for Africans to contribute.
The situation that Africans cannot solve their own problems could mean that the problems are really complex, or Africans are not competent enough to solve their own problems, or both. There are counterarguments that some can make, but the evidence before everyone is that Africa is not developed, so something is not right about what most of these people claim they are doing.
There were people who had thought that education was the problem in Africa, hence the proliferation of private universities, but no private university in Africa has solved any problem in Africa, making their existence questionable.
In some countries with strikes in state schools, student gangs, sexual harassment and poor facilities, private universities may have been seen as better by some parents, but avoiding some of those things does not make them universities.
Providing or getting a meaningful education is one of the things that cannot be easily copied. A student may buy a new pencil, bag or shoe, but if the student is hollow, the availability of those things does not count, even if they may show to outsiders that notice that the student seems equipped.
Most private universities in Africa have a new pencil problem. Copying buildings does not make a place a university, it is just real estate, giving dress codes does not make a university, just a fashion ground, even having discipline does not make the place better than a military camp.
The private universities in Africa appear not to have what it takes to be transformative destinations for high-quality education or serious projects that can develop Africa.
The terrible trend with private university graduates of recent years in Africa is that they are also leaving the continent, travelling for different reasons. Africans without education are travelling desperately. Those who went to state schools are travelling desperately. Those who went to private schools are also travelling desperately. So, what is the point of a private university, if their selling point for quality education produces graduates who become herds, with nothing substantial to offer than to do as others and race out?
Like shiny private universities and startups, many places in Africa may look new and modernized, but it appears that the dominant operational strategy for things in Africa is primitiveness. The same crude way that people do things in rural settings is the same way that others across Africa do things, even if they are better furnished.
The people that Africa copied startups from are not doing their mainstream startups like what Africa has made it. Success for startups often makes them evolve in more directions, with new paths and things, working their way to societal indispensability. This is not the case in Africa.
It must be familiar to be viable. And what is familiar must come from others. There is no originality, even of risks that would not cost much if it does not work. They are often on guard about insignificant products. They often make things that should make sense meaningless. They use hate and envy whereas they should use aptitude. They make choices based on what is easy not what is possible. Their character is weak, unable to bear the weight of the progress Africa needs. They often act like they are not in Africa, or what is evident is not their concern. Their persistence is often for show and pleasure.
African startups came to embody the same mistakes as universities, where the lecturers are motivated or happy by the availability of grants or funding, rather than by the need to solve pressing problems. There is hardly anyone in areas without money. The flock is where the funding is, or the purpose simply is money.
Just like African education is static, has not changed and solves nothing, showing that the lecturers are incompetent to even do anything in their own space, so are startups in Africa for whom it can be argued are lacking precise talents, even if there is the abundance of people doing things.
The startup scene instead has vultures, those with feet everywhere for whatever benefits they can amass. There are some of their apparently smart people who keep advising everywhere in public. Those people have nothing original. They know not more than they have read or seen. Anyone would know what they know given the same materials.
There were many on high horses for many years due to technical skills, but now that robots can code, it shows how light they have always been, having nothing beyond what anyone could learn.
African startups and private universities seem to turn away from obvious problems, for whatever reasons, maybe due to a lack of talent or what may bring funding.
There are young people who work on commercial buses in Africa, who scream intensely to get people to come in. There are people who carry things on their heads, walking miles to sell, come rain or shine. None of the private universities or startups seems to care or see these as problems to solve, though they find giving them loans or saving their money as something to solve, not their explosive misery.
Some startup people and university lecturers would wear African clothes or put all kinds of punctuation over their names, like what it means to love Africa or care what they wear or how their names appear when there are so many obvious problems, and what they offer is nothing.
Africa is in a bad place. There are many places in Africa where extreme poverty is the beginning of hope. There are too many common levels below extreme poverty, for many of the population, with most conditions external to human dignity.
The problems of Africa seem to be talking points for many, going to school elsewhere or doing some startups, only as means be far away from it, themselves.
Any university lecturer or startup person who says that government is bad or is the problem is absolutely clueless and has nothing to offer.
Government is an obvious problem in Africa from the observation of people who always externalize their problems. The university that cannot solve hawking, or transform parts of education services under their own power, would say the government is bad. A startup that has a useless but well-built product would say the government is bad.
African governments are just another department of the crudeness of Africans. Rather than the governments as a problem, they are opportunities.
All African governments (and law enforcement) are cheap, crude and confused. There is no way to want anything from them and not get it. Their power structure is only money and force, when power in the world has diversified with advances, they are stuck with the stale since their people too can’t seem to do anything new.
How does Africa make progress? There are many Africans who see nothing good in Africa and nothing would change that for them. Two sources, private universities and startups that should hold promise for Africa’s development have failed.
By Prince Charles Dickson, PhD
“And Jesus said to Judas… what you are going to do, do quickly.”
There is a hard, almost rude lesson in that line. History does not wait for the timid to finish their committee meeting. Politics, especially Nigerian politics, is not kind to hesitation dressed as strategy. It rewards those who understand timing, nerve, structure, and the brutal arithmetic of power. That is where the Nigerian opposition now stands: not at the edge of impossibility, but at the edge of urgency.
The first truth is the one opposition politicians do not enjoy hearing at rallies where microphones are loud, and introspection is scarce. They are not getting it right. The evidence is not only in Tinubu’s strength, but in their own disorder. INEC said on February 5, 2026, that there were now 21 registered political parties and warned that persistent internal leadership crises within parties pose a serious threat to democratic consolidation. Eight days later, the commission formally released the notice and timetable for the 2027 general elections. In other words, this is no longer the season of abstract grumbling. The whistle has gone. The race is live.
Yet the opposition often behaves like students who entered the examination hall with righteous anger but forgot their pens. Too much of its energy is spent on lamentation, rumours, courtroom oxygen, personality feuds, and that old Nigerian hobby of mistaking noise for architecture. You cannot defeat an incumbent machine by forming a WhatsApp coalition of wounded egos and calling it national salvation. Voters may clap for drama, but they still ask the unromantic question: who is in charge, what is the plan, and why should we trust you with the keys?
Now comes the more uncomfortable truth. The opposition is not facing an ordinary incumbent. It is facing Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man whose political DNA was forged in opposition. He is not merely benefiting from power; he understands opposition as craft, pressure, infiltration, timing, persistence, and theatre. In his June 12, 2025, Democracy Day speech, he taunted rivals by saying it was “a pleasure to witness” their disarray, while also reminding Nigerians that he once stood almost alone against an overbearing ruling machine. This was not casual banter. It was a warning shot from a politician who knows both the grammar of resistance and the machinery of incumbency.
That is why copying Tinubu’s old template will not be enough. Yes, the coalition instinct is understandable. In July 2025, major opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, aligned under the ADC banner, presenting themselves as a bulwark against one-party drift, with David Mark as interim chairman. But here is the problem: Tinubu’s own coalition history worked not simply because men gathered in one room and glared at the ruling party. It worked because there was a disciplined merger logic, state-level anchoring, message coordination, and a ruthless understanding of elite bargaining. What the present opposition sometimes offers instead is photocopy politics with low toner: a coalition of convenience trying to frighten a man who practically wrote the Nigerian handbook on political accommodation, defection management, and patient conquest.
This is also why the opposition’s moral complaint, though not baseless, cannot be its only language. Yes, concerns about democratic shrinkage are real. Tinubu himself publicly denied that Nigeria is moving toward a one-party state, even as defections from opposition parties to the APC intensified and his own party welcomed them. But to say “democracy is in danger” is not yet the same thing as building a democratic alternative. Nigerians do not eat constitutional anxiety for breakfast. They want a credible opposition that can protect pluralism and still explain food prices, jobs, security, power supply, transport costs, and what exactly it would do on Monday morning after taking office.
On the government’s side, the picture is mixed enough to make both triumphalism and apocalypse look unserious. Reuters reported this week that the World Bank expects Nigeria’s economy to grow by about 4.2% in 2026, with external buffers improving and the debt-to-GDP ratio falling for the first time in a decade. Inflation had eased to 15.06% in February from roughly 33% in late 2024. Those are not imaginary numbers, and any fair-minded analysis must admit that Tinubu’s reforms have altered the macroeconomic conversation. But the same report warned that the Iran war has pushed fuel prices up by more than 50%, with obvious consequences for transport, food, and household pain. Add the continuing insecurity, underscored again this week by the killing of a Nigerian army general in Borno, and the government begins to look like a man who has repaired the roof but left half the house still flooding. That is not a collapse. It is not a command either. It is a meandering reform under political stress.
So, what must the opposition do, and do quickly? First, it must stop making Tinubu the only subject of the campaign. Anti-Tinubu is not a manifesto. It is a mood. Moods trend; structures win. Second, it must settle leadership questions early and publicly, because no voter wants to hire a rescue team still fighting over the steering wheel. Third, it needs an issue coalition, not just an elite coalition. Security, inflation, youth jobs, electricity, federalism, and institutional reform must become a coherent national offer, not a buffet of press conference talking points. Fourth, it must build from the states upward. Presidential romance without subnational organisation is political karaoke: loud, emotional, and usually off-key by the second verse.
Fifth, it must look seriously at the legal terrain. The Electoral Act 2026 has made party organisation even more central. PLAC notes that the new law tightens party registration rules, removes deemed registration, expands INEC’s regulatory discretion, and preserves the fact that candidates still need political parties as the vehicle for contesting most elective offices because independent candidacy is not permitted. In plain language, parties matter even more now. A fragmented opposition is therefore not just aesthetically untidy. It is strategically suicidal.
Still, there are dangers in the opposite direction, too. A desperate anti-Tinubu mega-bloc could become a cargo truck of incompatible ambitions. If all it offers is the promise to defeat one man, it may reproduce the same habits it condemns once power arrives. Nigeria does not need a ruling party so swollen that democracy gasps for air. But it also does not need an opposition whose only ideology is turn-by-turn revenge. The health of democracy lies somewhere between monopoly and mob. It requires competition with content, not merely competition with bitterness. Tinubu himself, in that same June 12 speech, defended multiparty politics even while mocking the opposition’s disorder. That irony should not be wasted. He has thrown them both an insult and an assignment.
So, yes, the opposition is right to worry. But worry is not a strategy. Outrage is not an organisation. The coalition is not coherent. And history is not sentimental. The man they are up against is ruthless, seasoned, and intimate with the dark arts of democratic combat. He knows the game. Some of his opponents are still learning the rules from old newspaper cuttings.
Which brings us back to the scripture. What you are going to do, do quickly. Not recklessly. Not hysterically. Quickly. Settle your house. Name your purpose. Offer something fresher than recycled indignation. Build a machine that is not merely anti-Tinubu but pro-Nigeria in a way ordinary Nigerians can feel in their pockets and in their pulse. Otherwise, the opposition will keep arriving at battle dressed in borrowed armour, only to discover that the tailor works for the man they came to unseat—May Nigeria win!
By Gloria Onosode
Nigeria is targeting an ambitious $1 trillion economy by 2030. To achieve this, women-led businesses must transition from mere passive observers to primary growth drivers at the heart of the economy and strategic participants in their respective industries.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the increased ownership rate of MSMEs by women represents a significant contribution to economic growth and job creation. Digital empowerment for these enterprises must move from being a social responsibility or gender support initiative to contributing to broader economic development.
To reach the $1 trillion GDP milestone, women-led businesses must be positioned to operate at a macroeconomic scale. This requires moving beyond subsistence trading and into the digital value chain. For instance, a fashion designer in Aba, through digital positioning, can access broader markets and commercial networks and thereby facilitate better record-keeping and data-driven decision-making, supporting improved financial record-keeping, which may be considered in credit assessments by financial institutions.
FairMoney Microfinance Bank (MFB), a bank licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria, contributes to the digital transitioning of small businesses in Nigeria by providing tools specifically designed for the realities of the Nigerian entrepreneur. For women, whose businesses often fluctuate with seasonal demands or family needs, the ability to protect and grow capital is paramount. FairMoney MFB offers features that empower women to move from informal ‘under-the-mattress’ savings to digitised interest-bearing savings products. By embracing digital transition, tech-based saving platforms can enable business owners to set specific goals, such as purchasing new equipment, saving towards business goals in a disciplined manner, while earning interest at applicable rates.
For that business owner who requires immediate liquidity, our flexible savings feature offers interest while allowing for withdrawal access that is subject to applicable terms and conditions to cover emergency restocks. For longer-term scaling, our fixed-term savings feature allows entrepreneurs to lock away funds for a fixed period and accrue interest based on product terms, subject to terms and conditions. By automating savings and providing interest at applicable rates, FairMoney MFB is designed to support financial planning and resilience over time for women-led SMEs.
Nigerian women are among the most entrepreneurial globally, consistently defying structural barriers to build enterprises from the ground up. According to the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Nigeria has approximately 39.6 million nano, micro, small, and medium enterprises. Charles Odii, Director General at SMEDAN in 2024, also recently shared that approximately 72% of these enterprises are now classified as being owned or led by women. This is a significant jump from previous years, which hovered around 40–43%, largely due to the surge in ‘nano’ and ‘micro’ home-based businesses. These female-led enterprises are the primary engines of job creation and community stability.
Despite this drive, women entrepreneurs face a unique set of structural hurdles that stifle their ability to scale. The ‘financing gap’ remains the most formidable obstacle. The World Bank IFC Nigeria2Equal initiative reports that while Nigeria has one of the highest female entrepreneurship rates globally, the credit gap for these women is estimated at over 2.9 trillion Naira, forcing them into the ‘savings and family’ funding model.
The case for supporting these businesses extends beyond equity; it is rooted in the ‘multiplier effect’. Research demonstrates that women reinvest up to 90% of their income into their families and communities, specifically in education, healthcare, and nutrition. Supporting these enterprises is, therefore, a direct investment in Nigeria’s human capital. By bringing these businesses into the formal sector, the accuracy of economic planning will be improved. When a woman-led SME flourishes, the benefits ripple across the entire socioeconomic landscape.
The future of the Nigerian economy is intrinsically tied to the success of its women. When we prioritise women-led businesses, we are not merely fulfilling a gender quota; we can contribute to unlocking economic potential across sectors. By bridging the digital gap and providing robust financial tools for saving and credit to women-led businesses, Nigeria can begin to support the growth of micro-enterprises over time. A $1 trillion Nigeria is not just a dream; it represents a significant opportunity that can be progressively realised by the resilient women entrepreneurs of our nation.
Gloria Onosode is the Director of Enterprise Sales at FairMoney Business
These days, surviving in Nigeria feels like a full-time job on its own.
Before the month even properly begins, salary has already been divided into transport, fuel, food, bills, subscriptions, and every other expense that somehow keeps increasing. For many 9–5ers, the routine has become painfully familiar: wake up early, battle traffic, survive the stress of work, battle traffic again, and get home completely drained, only to realise even the simple things that help you unwind now have to be carefully budgeted for.
Because in this economy, everybody is cutting costs. People are thinking twice before ordering food. They are postponing shopping plans. They are reducing unnecessary spending. And for many, one of the first things to go has been entertainment.
The same streaming platforms and premium subscriptions people once paid for without thinking have now become part of the “maybe next month” list. Not because people suddenly stopped loving movies, series, football, or reality TV, but because when inflation keeps rising, and fuel costs continue to affect everything, entertainment starts to feel like a luxury.
But that is exactly why affordability in entertainment matters now more than ever and why GOtv continues to stand out as a brand that genuinely keeps everyday Nigerians in mind.
Rather than assuming quality entertainment should only be accessible to people willing to spend heavily, GOtv has consistently positioned itself as a platform built with everyday Nigerians in mind, creating options that allow people to still enjoy premium entertainment without having to break the bank.
Take the GOtv Smallie package, for example.
For as low as ₦1,900 a month, subscribers get access to over 35 channels, including approximately 19 to 21 local channels, sports content, and 15+ channels across news, music, movies, lifestyle, kids, and general entertainment.
And for those who prefer longer payment plans, it is also available in:
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Quarterly – ₦5,100
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Annual – ₦15,000
What makes this even better is that, despite being the most affordable package, Smallie still offers something for everyone.
It is not one of those basic plans where you pay less and get almost nothing. Whether you are the family member who loves African movies, the sports enthusiast who never wants to miss a match, the parent looking for kids’ content, or the person who just wants background TV after a stressful day, there is something to watch.
And for viewers who want even more variety, GOtv has other packages across different price points:
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GOtv Jinja – ₦3,900
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GOtv Jolli – ₦5,800
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GOtv Max – ₦8,500
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GOtv Supa – ₦11,400
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GOtv Supa Plus – ₦16,800
So, whether you’re going for the most affordable option or something with a more premium feel, there’s always a GOtv package that fits comfortably into different lifestyles and budgets.
At a time when everyday decisions are increasingly shaped by cost, GOtv quietly fills an important gap by keeping quality entertainment within reach for more people, because beyond the hustle, the traffic, the deadlines, and the constant pressure of trying to keep up with life in today’s economy, there is still a need for simple moments of joy and escape. Those small pauses in the day where you can switch off, relax, and just enjoy something light without overthinking it.
And that’s really the point: entertainment shouldn’t feel like another financial burden.
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