Nigeria is PayPal's second largest market in Africa

PayPal has revealed that Nigeria has become its second biggest market in Africa, less than one year after formally launching its services in the West African country.

Malvina Goldfeld, PayPal’s Head of Business Development, sub-Saharan Africa, recently made the revelation to tech news site IT Web Africa, while expressing satisfaction with PayPal’s overwhelming success in Nigeria since it officially launched in July last year.


“We are very happy to see that PayPal has been widely welcomed by Nigerians since the launch of the service in the country last year,” Goldfeld said.

South Africa is PayPal’s largest market in the continent, with more than one million active accounts; Nigeria and Kenya follow closely.

Goldfeld said PayPal is meeting the needs of Nigerians that purchase goods and services on foreign platforms.

“There are millions of people in Nigeria who are eager to engage in online commerce and our goal is to help them make payments more easily and securely. Currently, we offer Nigerians the opportunity to register for free for a PayPal account to make payments on overseas websites,” she said.

But PayPal’s relationship with Nigerian users is one-sided. Nigerians are only allowed to send payments abroad through the platform. Users are currently unable to receive money, and even though Nigerian internet users have continuously demanded for this service, PayPal and Goldfeld have been elusive as to if and when the service will be accessible to Nigerians.

“Nigeria is a very interesting market and over time we may expand our presence, but for now we are satisfied to help Nigerians register for free for a PayPal account and make payments on overseas websites,” she told ITWeb Africa.

When PayPal opened up its services to Nigerians last year, it signed up tens of thousands of users within its first week as consumers scrabbled to purchase goods from foreign e-commerce sites. Before then, PayPal was inaccessible to Nigerians even though much smaller African countries like Tanzania, Kenya, Chad and Mauritius were included in PayPal’s network. It is generally believed that the online payment processor avoided Nigeria for many years owing to its reputation as a hub for internet-related fraud.

Last year, PayPal made its entry into Nigeria and 9 other countries – Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Monaco, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and Paraguay, bringing the total number of countries under the PayPal network to 203.

Forbes


Related stories: PayPal signs "tens of thousands" in first week of launch in Nigeria

Bitcoin exchange market coming to Nigeria

ISIS accepts Nigeria's Boko Haram pledge

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants have accepted a pledge of allegiance by the Nigerian-grown Boko Haram extremist group, a spokesman for ISIS said Thursday.

The development comes as both movements, which are among the most ruthless in the world, are under increasing military pressure.

ISIS seized much of northern and western Iraq last summer giving it control of about a third of both Iraq and Syria. But it is now struggling against Iraqi forces seeking to recapture Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, while coming under fire from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in other parts of the country and in Syria.

Boko Haram, meanwhile, has been weakened by a multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of northeastern Nigerian towns. But its new Twitter account, increasingly slick and more frequent video messages and a new media arm all were considered signs that the group is now being helped by ISIS propagandists.

Then on Saturday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau posted an audio recording online that pledged allegiance to ISIS. On Thursday, ISIS's media arm Al-Furqan, in an audio recording by spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said that Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance has been accepted, claiming the caliphate has now expanded to West Africa.

Al-Adnani had urged foreign fighters from around the world to migrate and join Boko Haram.

"We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims ... and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah," said the message.

J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, noted the Islamic State group's quick acceptance of Boko Haram's allegiance and said that the bond highlights a new risk.

"Militants finding it increasingly harder to get to Syria and Iraq may choose instead to go to northeastern Nigeria and internationalize that conflict," he said.

The Boko Haram pledge of allegiance to ISIS comes as the militants reportedly were massing in the northeastern Nigerian town of Gwoza, considered their headquarters, for a showdown with the Chadian-led multinational force.

Boko Haram killed an estimated 10,000 people last year, and it is blamed for last April's abduction of more than 275 schoolgirls. Thousands of Nigerians have fled to neighbouring Chad.

The group is waging a nearly six-year insurgency to impose Muslim Shariah law in Nigeria. It began launching attacks across the border into Cameroon last year, and this year its fighters struck in Niger and Chad in retaliation to their agreement to form a multinational force to fight the militants.

Boko Haram followed the lead of ISIS in August by declaring an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria that grew to cover an area the size of Belgium. ISIS had declared a caliphate in vast swaths of territory that it controls in Iraq and Syria.

The Nigerian group has also followed ISIS in publishing videos of beheadings. The latest one, published March 2, borrowed certain elements from ISIS productions, such as the sound of a beating heart and heavy breathing immediately before the execution, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

In video messages last year, Boko Haram's leader sent greetings and praise to both ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and leaders of al-Qaeda. But Boko Haram has never been an affiliate of al-Qaeda, some analysts surmise because al-Qaeda considers the Nigerians' indiscriminate slaughter of Muslim civilians as un-Islamic.

Recent offensives have marked a sharp escalation by African nations against Boko Haram. An African Union summit agreed on sending a force of 8,750 troops to fight Boko Haram.

Military operations in Niger's east have killed at least 500 Boko Haram fighters since Feb. 8, Nigerien officials have said.

Members of the UN Security Council proposed Thursday that the international community supply money, equipment, troops and intelligence to a five-nation African force fighting Boko Haram.

CBC


Related story: Video - Boko Haram pledge allegiance to ISIS

President Goodluck Jonathan accuses opponent Muhammmadu Buhari of support of same sex marriage

President Goodluck Jonathan has accused his main challenger in March 28 election, Muhammadu Buhari, of assuring western nations of his preparedness to support same-sex marriage if he wins the forthcoming polls.

Mr. Jonathan, who spoke through his campaign organization, said Mr. Buhari made the pledge to secure the support of the countries to win election.

Femi Fani-Kayode, the Spokesperson of President Jonathan, said four western countries extracted a commitment from Mr. Buhari, who represents the All Progressives Congress, to support a legislation enabling same sex marriage.

Amid a flurry of apparently election-fuelled allegations, the claim by the Jonathan camp Wednesday seemed one of the most serious.

Still, Mr. Fani-Kayode, reputed for making unsubstantiated allegations against political opponents, refused to give the names of the four countries he was referring to.

Mr. Buhari, seen by his supporters as a non-nonsense former military leader, whose brief administration in the 1980s waged campaigns against indiscipline and corruption, has not given any hint suggesting he would condone same-sex relationship, already outlawed in Nigeria.

Nigeria's National Assembly has already passed a bill making gay marriage a criminal offense, and offenders risk spending 14 years in jail if convicted.

But addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja, Mr. Fani-Kayode said the proposition was made to Mr. Buhari by the representatives of a number of western governments when he was in the United Kingdom recently.

Mr. Fani Kayode said Mr. Buhari had appealed to the western leaders for support and to get their endorsement.

"He had talks with the representatives of at least four western countries. The leaders of those countries made an offer to General Muhammadu Buhari and we are reliably informed that he has put the offer under consideration.

"The proposition and offer was that if he was prepared to support legislation in Nigeria to allow same sex marriage and if he was prepared to repeal the anti-gay laws in Nigeria they will, in return, endorse, support and fund him, initially covertly and eventually publicly, at the right time," he said.

He also said that instead of out rightly rejecting these offers and spurning this proposition, Mr. Buhari "apparently refused to rule it out and has put the matter under consideration.

"Instead of him to say NO he assured them that he would consider these two things.

"We believe that this is a matter that ought to be brought to the attention of the Nigerian people as a matter of urgency," he said.

Mr. Fani-Kayode added that the APC are so desperate to ensure that Mr. Buhari becomes the President of Nigeria that they are actually prepared to consider the scrapping of all anti-gay or anti-homosexual legislations and at the same time, endorsing and supporting fresh legislation that would allow same sex marriage in the country.

"They are considering this despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian people find same sex marriage and, indeed, homosexuality repugnant and unacceptable.

"We are using this occasion to challenge General Buhari to come clean and to tell the Nigerian people whether this is true and whether, in the unlikely event of his being elected President, he is seriously considering scrapping the anti-homosexual laws in our country and pushing through new legislation which would allow same sex marriage," Mr. Fani-Kayode said.

Premium Times

Morocco recalls its ambassador to Nigeria

Morocco has recalled its ambassador to Nigeria, in a row over whether the president of Nigeria is trying to use the king of Morocco to win over Muslim voters before Nigeria's elections this month.

Last week, the Moroccan royal palace said the king had declined a request for a telephone conversation with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria's foreign ministry denied the snub on Monday and said the two leaders had spoken extensively.

Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, will face former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim northerner, in elections on March 28. The election is expected to be the most closely fought since the end of military rule in 1999.

Nigeria's population is roughly split between Christians and Muslims. Both parties, the ruling People's Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, have been using religion to bolster support.

"Morocco confirms, in the clearest and strongest terms, that there has never been a phone conversation between the King Mohammed VI and the president of this country," a statement from the Moroccan foreign ministry said.

The Nigerian foreign ministry said it was "preposterous to suggest that Mr. President's telephone call to the Moroccan monarch was intended to confer any electoral advantage."

A spokesman for the ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the recall.

Morocco cited "the hostile, recurrent and unfriendly positions of the Nigerian government with regard to the Moroccan Sahara issue and the sacred Arab-Muslim causes" as a reason for declining Jonathan's call.

Nigeria is one of the main supporters, along with Algeria and South Africa on the continent, of the independence movement Polisario Front in the disputed Western Sahara.

The territory is a tract of desert the size of Britain that has lucrative phosphate reserves and possibly oil, is the focus of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute, between Morocco and the Polisario guerrillas.


Reuters

Video - Nigerian military re-capture more towns from Boko Haram

Nigeria's military said Tuesday it had only one town left to recapture from Boko Haram militants in the north-eastern state of Yobe, a former stronghold of the group. This as Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin mobilize forces to help Nigeria defeat the group, after it seized large swathes of territory and staged cross border attacks.