New Wine, Old Wineskins: Nigeria's Assistive Tech Push

Nigeria is finally investing in assistive technology for people with disabilities, something the disability community has long been calling for. At its fourth Hackathon Live Show in Abuja, the telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), challenged 20 innovators to build solutions under the theme "Technology Without Barriers." The ideas presented included AI-powered speech-to-text, real-time sign language translation, voice-enabled complaint systems, accessible customer care services, image-to-voice navigation, and inclusive employment platforms.

The stakes are significant: estimates commonly cited by advocacy groups put Nigeria's population of persons with disabilities among the largest in Africa—over 30 million people by some counts—and Nigeria's Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, signed in 2018, was meant to guarantee equal access to services, including digital ones.

It is a welcome development—but there is a problem: many of the digital platforms these technologies are meant to help people access remain inaccessible.

Nigeria already has standards for building accessible government websites. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)'s guidelines require government institutions to provide equal access to information and functionality and to adopt the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Yet repeated audits have found accessibility problems across government websites. In June 2025, TechCabal published an investigation documenting similar barriers on banking, fintech, e-commerce, and other digital platforms.

This raises a bigger question about Nigeria's approach to digital inclusion. Assistive technologies can solve barriers that require specialised solutions, but they cannot replace accessibility built into the original product. A screen reader, for instance, can only interpret what a website makes available to it. As Nigeria builds new tools to help people navigate the digital world, perhaps it also needs to fix the world those tools are being built to navigate. TechCabal reporter John Adoyi wrote a deep dive on this topic here.

Nigerian Defence-Tech Startup Terra Industries Taps Ex-Palantir Executive

Terra Industries, the Nigerian defence-tech startup that recently closed a $52 million seed round, announced last Friday a move that split Twitter users between fierce criticism and enthusiastic praise—unusual for a company that is never short on surprise announcements.

On Friday, August 28, CEO and cofounder Nathan Nwachuku said on the social media platform that former Palantir director Todd Stiefler was joining the defence-tech startup as Director of Commercial (X post).

Terra builds autonomous security systems for critical infrastructure, including power plants, mines, and other assets that governments and companies need to keep running. Stiefler's job will be to help turn that technology into a bigger commercial business, particularly among companies operating critical infrastructure across the Global South.

His background makes the appointment notable. Before Terra, Stiefler was a Vice President of Enterprise at WHOOP, a US-based fitness and wearable tech company, and worked in business development at Palantir, where he helped build go-to-market teams around its Apollo and FedStart platforms for defence and dual-use technology companies. That lineage matters beyond one company: hiring experienced operators from established US defence and data companies is one way African defence-tech firms are trying to close credibility and go-to-market gaps as they pitch institutions that have historically bought from Western and Chinese vendors.

The timing matters. Terra has just raised one of the biggest seed rounds in African tech this year, opened a London office, and is expanding manufacturing in Ghana. The company says its systems have already been used to protect about $11 billion worth of nationally critical assets across several African countries. That is considerable momentum for a company still at the seed stage, and it helps explain why its moves draw strong reactions online.

Stiefler's appointment suggests Terra is entering its next phase. The question is no longer whether African-built defence technology can work; Terra appears to be proving it with domain expertise and an experienced board. The company now seems to be aggressively building and expanding its commercial flywheel, targeting institutions and likely governments.

Mozambique Is Building the Institutions It Needs to Have a Say in Its AI Future

It is easy to think of an AI ecosystem as startups building chatbots and researchers training models. But before any of that scales, countries need institutions figuring out how the technology should be built, funded, regulated, and used. Mozambique has taken a step in that direction with the launch of the Mozambican Association of Artificial Intelligence (AMIA) in Maputo, its capital city.

AMIA will assemble government institutions, companies, universities, researchers, entrepreneurs, and civil society working on AI. Its goal is to encourage research, skills development, collaboration, and the adoption of AI solutions that fit Mozambique's needs. A local association could also provide policymakers with a forum to hear from people building the technology before rules are written—something that has often been missing elsewhere on the continent, where AI frameworks have tended to arrive without broad consultation.

Mozambique's push to build an artificial intelligence ecosystem did not start with AMIA. In 2025, the government began work on a national artificial intelligence strategy with support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In March 2026, it created a National Artificial Intelligence Commission to guide the technology's development and regulation, while also working with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN body, on an artificial intelligence regulatory sandbox—a controlled environment for testing AI systems and regulatory approaches. AMIA is another piece of that broader effort.

Mozambique is not alone in figuring out how to regulate AI—at least in Africa—ethically and beneficially. Kenya has a new framework that demands transparency in use. South Africa has pushed its expected policy release to at least 2027 after the fiasco in April this year. Several others, including Mauritius, have taken additional steps. AI remains one part of the emerging tech puzzle that African regulators are still trying to wrap their heads around; Mozambique is doing so through dialogue.

JSE Suspends Labat Africa After It Promised—and Failed—to Pay Shareholders a Dividend

After 27 years of owning shares in Labat Africa, a South African technology and investment holding company, investors were told their dividend was coming. The payment date came and went; nothing happened. Now, in a small dose of stock market justice, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has suspended trading of the company's shares.

In June, Labat Africa declared its first dividend since listing on the JSE in 1999. The company declared 1 cent per share, meaning about R22.7 million ($1.4 million) was due to shareholders across its 2.268 billion shares. After dividend tax, shareholders would receive about R18.1 million ($1.1 million). The payment was due on August 3, but just days before then, Labat postponed it until it released its audited financial statements.

The JSE said Labat failed to pay the dividend by the date it had set, and did not make alternative arrangements to ensure the full amount was transferred to Strate, South Africa's central securities depository, which processes securities transactions. So, despite Labat's objections, the JSE paused trading in its shares.

Under South Africa's Companies Act, directors must authorise dividend payments and satisfy a solvency and liquidity test; the company must still have enough assets to cover its debts and pay its bills when they fall due. Labat's board said it met those tests. But two months later, the JSE said there was uncertainty over whether the dividend would be paid.

This is not Labat's first time in the penalty box. Trading of its shares was previously suspended in 2023 after the company failed to publish its financial statements on time. Trading resumed in December 2024 as part of the process around its acquisition of Classic International, a software and technology distributor.

Other companies have also faced JSE suspensions for missing reporting deadlines. Wesizwe Platinum, for example, was suspended for about a year after failing to publish its financial statements on time; trading for Wesizwe resumed in June 2026. For a small-cap like Labat, repeated suspensions carry an added cost beyond the immediate freeze: they can weigh on the company's standing with investors who rely on exchange oversight as a baseline signal of disclosure quality.

For shareholders, Labat shares still belong to their owners, but they cannot be traded until the JSE lifts the suspension. Those still owed a dividend are stuck waiting for Labat. The JSE has told Labat to publicly explain what happened and provide more information about how the dividend will be settled. Maybe then, after 27 years of waiting, shareholders may get some closure.

Job Openings

• Flutterwave — Marketing & Strategic Research Specialist — Lagos, Nigeria
• Paystack — Senior QA Engineer — Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
• Tether — Expansion Manager (Nigeria) — Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
• Tether — Expansion Manager (Côte d'Ivoire) — Remote (Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire)

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• Coffee With: She learned finance on Wall Street. Now she is changing how Africa gets funded.
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• Why the global push to break free from Big Tech keeps falling short
• Environmental journalists in Africa facing violence, says report

Written by John Adoyi, Yemi Kareem, and Zia Yusuf. Edited by Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade. Source: TechCabal Daily.