Olu Akanmu Resigns as OPay Nigeria Chief Executive Officer

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The chief executive of OPay Nigeria, Mr Olu Akanmu, has stepped down from the position, as the company is celebrating its 5th anniversary in the country.

In a post via his X page (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Mr Akanmu did not give any reason he was leaving the organisation he joined in November 2021 after being a director at FCMB, a mid-level lender in Nigeria.

“My Gratitude to all my colleagues at Opay for the good work we did together in deepening financial inclusion in Nigeria, ensuring that fewer and fewer number of our people are left behind in partaking out of the opportunities of the digital financial system.

“Many thanks also to all our ecosystem partners and enablers who complimented us, without which we would not have been able to deliver on the lofty mission of OPay, which is to deepen financial inclusion through technology.

“Yet there is still so much to be done collectively by us as all to ensure that no one is left behind by the modern digital financial system.

“The lesson of the cashless or limited Cash period earlier in the year is that millions are not yet included despite the progress we have made collectively as an ecosystem.

“For the Nigeria Fintech community, the imperative of ensuring that we serve not only the banked and underserved, but also the completely excluded, which still represents at least 45 per cent of our people, should be our collective and greater patriotic mission, complementing the historic efforts of traditional players.

“Collaborations, public-private partnerships, and more deliberate coordination at the digital public infrastructure (#dpi) ecosystem layers would be critical to ensure we succeed in doing the next heavy lifting to extend the digital financial rail to the next 20 million,” he posted today.

While he was the CEO of OPay, he deepened financial inclusion in Nigeria, as the company took financial services to many unbanked areas and persons.