Technology
9mobile Sale: Why Glo May Finally Lose Out
By Dipo Olowookere
There are strong indications that Globacom, one of the four GSM service providers in Nigeria, may not be given the nod to acquire the troubled 9mobile, one of the mobile phone operators in the country.
9mobile, formerly Etisalat Nigeria, is desperately in need of a new investor after it was taken over in July 2017 following a N541 billion debt.
The telecoms firm obtained a syndicated loan from 13 Nigerian banks and after it failed its repayment plan, the lenders attempted to take over the company, but the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) prevented this.
After the regulators took over Etisalat Nigeria, Mubadala Group, the major investor from the United Arab Emirates, pulled out of the firm and said its brand name must not be used any longer, leading to the birth of 9mobile weeks later.
Barclays Africa, an arm of the Barclays Group, was appointed to shop for a new buyer of 9mobile and five companies have emerged the top bidders.
The firms are Bharti Airtel, an Indian telco that owns Airtel Nigeria; Globacom, the Nigerian company owned by Mike Adenuga Jnr; Teleology Holdings Limited, promoted by Adrian Wood, the pioneer CEO of MTN Nigeria; Smile Telecoms Holdings, a telco operating in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo DR and South Africa; and Helios Investment Partners LLP, an investment company.
According to a report by The Cable, Globacom desperately wants to acquire 9mobile, but it would take a miracle for this to happen.
This, according to the report, is because Glo does not have the financial muscle to revive 9mobile, which hopes to clear its debt with the banks.
“It is public knowledge that 9mobile is in dire need of real financial injection because of the debts, as well as a strong governance culture in view of its recent history.
“Glo is not the most financially buoyant to revive 9mobile, neither does it have the best-practice governance culture that 9mobile requires. Adenuga runs Glo like a kiosk or corner shop, and this cannot help the situation of 9mobile,” the insider was quoted as saying by TheCable.
However, it was gathered that Mr Adenuga desperately wants to acquire the telco and this is to claim the bragging rights of the largest telecom company in Nigeria.
Glo is currently the second largest operator in Nigeria with 37 million voice and 26.8 million internet subscribers, according to the October 2017 statistics from the NCC.
If it acquires 9mobile, it will automatically become the biggest network in Nigeria by adding 17 million to voice and 11.5 million to internet subscription base, he hopes.
Combined, the new entity’s 54 million voice lines and 38.3 million internet subscriptions will surpass MTN Nigeria’s 50.7 million and 32.5 million respectively.
“This, in sum, is why Adenuga wants 9mobile badly, despite the serious challenges Glo itself is facing in its business model,” the source said.
Glo would move from its 26.4% share of the market to 38.5%, including the benefit of recording more subscribers porting to its network.
Mr Adenuga’s company currently has the lowest number of gains from porting — an average of less than 1,000 per month — while 9mobile recorded a monthly average of 12,000 porting subscribers in 2017, industry’s highest by a distance, the journal reports.
Although the transaction is being handled by Barclays Africa, an arm of the Barclays Group, the telecom regulator, NCC, and the banking watchdog, CBN are expected to play a key role in the final decision.
NCC controls 9mobile’s operating licence while CBN regulates the banks. Both intervened to save 9mobile when it was going down.
The involvement of CBN and NCC, which had previously complained about “lack of transparency” by Barclays in the transaction, is not likely to do Mr Adenuga any favours.
However, Globacom remains confident that it would win the bid.
“Dr Mike Adenuga Jnr is never tired of pushing for improvement. Globacom boasts of arguably the most inspired and most passionate workforce in the industry.
We have the edge,” an insider told TheCable, refusing to be named because of internal rules.
Glo is the second national operator (SNO), licensed to provide national backbone for other networks as well as roll out landlines across the country.
“Since Adenuga got the SNO licence in 2003, he has not yet fulfilled the conditions of the licence. This is 14 years and counting,” a senior government official told TheCable on the condition that he would not be named.
“By now, it should have rolled out landlines nationwide and provided broadband access to millions of homes. The huge benefits to the economy have been lost over time. The notion that Globacom can get such an important licence and refuse to fulfill the conditions is unacceptable.”
Globacom was recently kicked out of the Republic of Benin after failing to meet conditions for the renewal of its licence, despite the fact that it took years for the company to roll out its service as a result of regulatory requirements.
The telecom company’s services in Ghana are also not well rated.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Thursday, July 23, 2026, provided an opportunity for financial services professionals to converge on Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, to brainstorm on ways to meet the rising customers’ expectations.
The platform used for this purpose was Core by Interswitch. It is part of the company’s broader commitment to strengthening Africa’s digital payments ecosystem by fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing and operational excellence across the financial services value chain.
At the event, participants, numbering over 400, also highlighted the growing importance of operational excellence in sustaining resilient payment infrastructure.
As digital financial services continue to expand across Africa, closer collaboration among financial institutions, fintechs and payment service providers will be essential to improving responsiveness, resolving operational challenges more effectively and delivering consistently reliable customer experiences.
The Executive Vice President for Operations and Technology at Interswitch, Mr Babafemi Ogungbamila, said the forum reflects the company’s belief that exceptional customer experiences are built not only on innovative technology but also on the expertise, collaboration and commitment of the professionals who keep payment systems running every day.
“Every successful digital transaction is powered by professionals whose work often goes unseen but is fundamental to building trust in digital payments. Core by Interswitch was created to recognise their contribution, strengthen collaboration across the industry and create opportunities for shared learning that ultimately benefit financial institutions and the customers they serve.
“As digital payments continue to evolve, investing in the people and processes that power the technology is just as important as investing in the technology itself,” Mr Ogungbamila said.
Beyond recognising the professionals whose work often goes unnoticed, the programme underscored the value of creating stronger connections across the payments ecosystem.
By creating a dedicated platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration and professional development, Core by Interswitch aims to build a more connected community of payments operations professionals equipped to respond to the evolving demands of the digital economy.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
WhatsApp has been updated with a web calling feature, allowing users to now make and receive audio and video calls, both one-on-one and group, directly from WhatsApp Web.
A notice from the Meta-owned messaging platform disclosed that this feature works without the need to download any app.
It was disclosed that this update was made to WhatsApp to make it easier for users to make calls wherever they are and on whatever device, phone or laptop.
Users will have access to features available on their other devices, including screen sharing, reactions, and a dedicated Calls tab with full call history and favourites, all from their browsers.
WhatsApp noted that calls from this feature are end-to-end encrypted, with no time limits and at no cost, as it is the same private experience they expect from the platform.
WhatsApp has also been embedded with easy call transfer, enabling the movement of an active group call from one device to another without hanging up. Users can seamlessly transfer calls to WhatsApp Web or Desktop when they arrive home to collaborate on a larger screen – or vice versa.
The platform further said it now has QuickHD, which allows for an improved video experience at the beginning of a call. With QuickHD, users can now enjoy high-definition video immediately in the very first few seconds of the call.
In addition, it has launched noise suppression to remove the background noise around callers so their voices come through clearly to the person on the other end, even in loud or busy environments. This can be managed at any time in in-call settings.
WhatsApp said these features are rolling out gradually and will be available to everyone soon, expressing its desire to make WhatsApp calling simpler to use.
Modded Minecraft worlds take weeks to build. Custom biomes, terraformed landscapes, established bases — losing any of it to a corrupted chunk or a failed update is devastating. Backups aren’t optional for modded servers. They’re essential.
Modded hosting with reliable backups protects everything players have built across every minecraft biome types the pack introduces — without requiring manual backup routines that nobody remembers to run.
Why Modded Worlds Are More Vulnerable to Data Loss
Vanilla Minecraft worlds are relatively stable. Modded worlds have more ways to break. Mod updates can corrupt chunk data if block IDs change. Crashes during chunk generation leave partial files. Automated farms that run while no players are online can cause chunk-level issues over time.
Biomes added by mods require extra care. Changing biome mods later can cause unexpected problems. If the old biome data no longer exists, Minecraft may not know how to read parts of the world anymore. The Minecraft Wiki explains that every generated chunk keeps its own biome information in the save. Modded biomes require their mod to be present to load correctly — removing the mod without migrating chunks first causes permanent data loss in those areas.
Minecraft Biome Types: What Mods Add
People often focus on giant mountains or rare structures, but smaller biome changes matter too. A carefully designed minecraft grass biome can completely change the appearance of an entire region. Once that combines with improved forests, rivers, and mountain generation, exploration naturally takes longer because there’s almost always another interesting place nearby. There’s a massive difference once biome mods are installed. Biomes O’ Plenty alone adds over 80 biomes. Terralith adds another 95 plus, although it still builds worlds using Minecraft’s regular generation system rather than a custom one. Oh The Biomes You’ll Go adds tropical and fantasy biomes not found in either.
Each of these creates a richer world to explore — and more unique terrain to protect. A player who spends two sessions exploring and settling in a modded cherry blossom grove loses something irreplaceable if that chunk gets corrupted without a backup.
Content creator and modpack player Noxite has described modded biome exploration as one of the most memorable experiences in the game — “every new biome feels like discovering a location that exists only in your world.” Backups protect that discovery.
Many players only start thinking about backups after something goes wrong. It’s surprisingly easy for a modded world to develop problems. Maybe the server restarts halfway through chunk generation, or a mod update changes world data in a way the old save no longer understands. Even experienced server owners don’t get through every update without issues. Sometimes everything looks fine until someone explores a new biome and discovers broken chunks. At that point, having a recent backup is usually the simplest solution instead of trying to repair damaged terrain piece by piece.
What a Reliable Backup System Looks Like for Modded Servers
For modded worlds, backup requirements go beyond vanilla minimums:
- Daily automated backups — at minimum; hourly for active community servers
- Full world backups — not just player data; entire world folder including all dimensions
- Pre-update snapshots — automatic backup triggered before any mod or server update
- Offsite storage — backups stored separately from the server to survive hardware failure
- Easy restoration — one-click restore to a specific backup without technical support
Protecting Every Biome You’ve Explored
Minecraft biomes wiki entries for modded biomes often include notes about save compatibility across versions. The community’s experience is consistent: mod updates break worlds more often than player actions do. Regular backups are the only reliable protection.
Choose modded hosting with reliable backups that runs automatically, stores multiple restore points, and makes restoration simple. The time investment in setting up proper backups is always less than the time lost rebuilding after a preventable data loss event.
