{"id":5642,"date":"2026-11-01T12:30:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/01\/opay-coo-says-build-for-nigerias-worst-days\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T12:30:56","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:30:56","slug":"opay-coo-says-build-for-nigerias-worst-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/01\/opay-coo-says-build-for-nigerias-worst-days\/","title":{"rendered":"OPay COO says build for Nigeria&#8217;s worst days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nigeria\u2019s technology market is usually described by its problems, from unreliable infrastructure to a volatile economy. Dotun Daniel Adekunle, OPay\u2019s chief operating officer and chief technology officer, argues that the country\u2019s most durable companies are the ones built to survive its worst days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStubbornness is a business model in Africa,\u201d Adekunle said in a keynote titled \u201cMarkets That Refuse to Break\u201d at Moonshot by TechCabal on 28 October. A market this hard, he argued, rewards companies that keep adapting to local conditions.<\/p>\n<p>On 9 October, OPay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/0002103076\/000119312526418812\/d56487df1.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">filed to list on the New York Stock Exchange<\/a>. The filing shows revenue of $467.1 million in the first half of 2026, up from $197.5 million a year earlier, with lending overtaking payments as its largest business. Nigeria supplied 89.5% of that revenue, and the filing lists credit risk and regulation among the main threats to the business.<\/p>\n<p>Adekunle pointed to the 2023 cash crunch as an example. When the naira redesign left Nigerians short of cash, transfers surged and bank apps buckled under the load. The number of payments on the NIBSS Instant Payment system jumped 45.5% in February 2023, while their total value fell 5.12%, as Nigerians moved small, everyday spending onto transfers. OPay, Adekunle said, held up because of its nationwide agent network.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to adapt to the local environment, or you\u2019ll die,\u201d he said. \u201cTechnology is designed for the local reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group ad-box-section\">\n<div class=\"content is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"google-ads-wrapper wp-block-bcm-blocks-google-ads\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On August 30, a fake notice spread online claiming OPay would shut down on 1 September and urging customers to withdraw their money. Some did. OPay denied it, the Central Bank of Nigeria called it false, and police arrested a woman on 4 September over the post. \u201cWhen we had the issue, we had to bring the market together because it could be you the next day,\u201d Adekunle said. \u201cResilience cannot be achieved alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His argument is that markets rarely break companies on their own. \u201cFragile markets don\u2019t break businesses, fragile assumptions do,\u201d he said. He named three assumptions builders should drop: that they can design for an average day, that technology can stand in for people, and that regulators are opponents. Regulation, he said, should be treated as a design input.<\/p>\n<p>He closed by urging builders to treat the world as their operating system. \u201cIf you can survive Nigeria, you can survive the world,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s have the courage and conviction to take on the world, because if Nigeria can\u2019t break you, the world cannot break you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Source: <\/p>\n<div class=\"nSourse\">TechCabal<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nigeria\u2019s technology market is usually described by its problems, from unreliable infrastructure to a volatile economy. Dotun Daniel Adekunle, OPay\u2019s chief operating officer and chief technology officer, argues that the&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}