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MTN secures Nigeria’s approval for IHS deal

MTN’s new data centre company

Kenya’s gambling regulator to reinstate fees

Tighter border-crossing monitoring between Kenya, Uganda

World Wide Web 3

Opportunities

M&A

MTN secures Nigeria’s approval to acquire IHS Towers

MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecom company, has cleared a major hurdle in its $2.2 billion takeover of IHS Towers in Nigeria. But regulators have ensured the telecom giant doesn’t get the whole tower cake.

What happened? Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), the competition watchdog, has given MTN conditional approval to acquire the remaining stake in IHS, with one important catch: MTN must sell up to 30% of its stake in IHS Nigeria to local investors at market prices over time.

Between the lines: The condition is aimed at preventing MTN from having too much control over the infrastructure its competitors depend on. IHS Nigeria operates nearly 16,000 towers used by MTN Nigeria, Airtel, and T2 Mobile (formerly 9mobile). In other words, MTN is buying the landlord while remaining one of the biggest tenants.

Explain like I’m new here: In February, MTN agreed to buy the remaining 19.2% of IHS Towers Nigeria for about $2.2 billion, after already holding a stake in the tower company. The deal would make MTN the majority owner of one of Africa’s biggest tower operators, giving it more control over infrastructure used by rival telcos.

State of play: MTN will retain majority ownership, giving it greater control over network expansion, costs and capacity while still allowing competitors access to the towers. The deal could also help MTN recover some of the capital tied up in the acquisition and reduce pressure on its balance sheet.

The bigger issue is whether infrastructure ownership can deliver efficiency without weakening competition. Towers are becoming increasingly important as operators expand mobile broadband and 5G networks, making control of them strategically valuable.

Zoom out: For MTN, the FCCPC approval means the IHS deal is moving closer to completion. But in Nigeria’s telecom market, owning the towers comes with a reminder from regulators: you can be the landlord, just don’t change the rent because you own the building.

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Companies

MTN is building a home for Africa’s AI ambitions

MTN wants to do more than connect Africa’s businesses to the internet; it wants to build and operate the facilities that store and process the cloud software, enterprise tools, and artificial intelligence applications those businesses use. The South African telecoms company has created Africa Data Hub Holding Limited, a new company that will develop data centre capacity across Africa backed by an undisclosed United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based investment platform.

What happened? MTN disclosed the partnership in its interim results for the six months ended June 30, 2026. Africa Data Hub will combine MTN’s footprint and local market knowledge with international funding and data centre expertise. MTN has identified South Africa and Nigeria as its priority markets for the data-centre and AI-infrastructure push. Nigeria has Africa’s largest mobile market, while South Africa is a key regional technology and enterprise market.

MTN has already started laying the concrete. In 2025, MTN Nigeria opened the first phase of its 9MW Sifiso Dabengwa Data Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. That first phase delivered 4.5MW of capacity; the full facility is being built in two stages. In South Africa, MTN operates facilities in Centurion, Randburg, Cape Town, and Mtunzini. The Mtunzini site connects to 2Africa, a subsea cable system that carries internet traffic between Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Explain like I’m new here: The new company is the latest step in a plan MTN began outlining with its 2025 full-year results, when it said its Digital Infrastructure business was preparing an AI-enabled data-centre network. The group then opened the first phase of the Lagos facility, and in March 2026, invested in ORAN Development Corporation (ODC), a US technology company developing systems that turn mobile-network sites into computing hubs. Africa Data Hub gives it a vehicle to sell more of the computing and storage happening at the other end.

Between the lines: MTN is looking to turn its telecom footprint into a broader digital infrastructure business. The strategy goes beyond traditional data centres: in March, its Digital Infrastructure arm joined ODC’s $45 million Series A round, which is developing technology to turn mobile sites into distributed computing hubs. The new holding company and the ODC investment point in the same direction: MTN wants to capture the spending that follows Africa’s digitisation, not just the connectivity that enables it.

Zoom out: Africa’s AI opportunity will depend on unglamorous infrastructure: reliable power, fibre, data centres, and enough computing capacity to keep applications running. MTN already has the customers, licences, and physical footprint. The next test is whether it can turn those advantages into a data centre business without losing focus on the telecom markets funding its expansion.

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Regulation

Kenya’s gambling regulator can now collect the fees it was told to stop collecting

Kenya’s gambling industry has spent the past month in a regulatory limbo. The government said it needed new rules to clean up the sector, operators said some of those rules were too expensive, and the courts have been stuck in the middle.

Now, the regulator has won a temporary round.

What happened? Kenya’s High Court has ruled that the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya (GRAK), the regulator that licences and supervises gambling businesses, can resume collecting disputed licencing fees while a case challenging the country’s new gambling rules continues. The decision reverses an earlier order that had stopped the fees from being implemented.

Explain like I’m new here: Kenya overhauled its gambling laws with the Gambling Control Act, 2025, which replaced the old Betting, Lotteries, and Gaming Act that GRAK created. The detailed licencing regulations came into effect in June 2026, setting out licence categories, application procedures, financial requirements, and renewal rules.

Between the lines: An online bookmaker licence rose from KES 200,000 ($1,545) to KES 50 million ($387,000), while a casino licence increased from KES 7 million ($54,000) to KES 120 million ($930,000). Operators and other petitioners, including lawyers Thomas Buckley Opar Owuor and Ken Brance, challenged the rules in court, arguing that they were unlawful and that the government had not followed the proper process in making them.

On August 7, the High Court suspended the new licence fees and capital requirements for gambling operators, while allowing most of the other rules to remain in force.

What’s changed now? GRAK went back to court because the suspension created a practical problem: 246 licence applications were stuck. After all, the authority could not complete licencing without collecting the prescribed fees. The court has now allowed GRAK to collect those fees while the main case is still being decided. GRAK has also promised that if the court eventually rules that the fees or regulations were unlawful, it will refund the money collected.

What happens to the gambling industry? Operators can now pay the disputed fees and get licenced, but the fight is not over. The petitioners want the court to cancel the new rules, arguing that the higher fees could push some operators to cut back or leave the market. The case returns on September 21.

Economy

Kenya wants to make its Uganda border crossings harder to game

At Kenya’s western border, customs officials are collecting more money while smugglers are still finding the cheaper route. Lawmakers now want the government to close that gap by aligning taxes with neighbouring countries and upgrading surveillance at the Busia and Malaba Kenyan-Ugandan border crossings.

What happened? At Malaba, there’s a very lucrative road that governments would prefer everyone to use. Kenya’s main road-freight gateway into Uganda collected KES11.04 billion ($85.28 million) in customs revenue in the year ended June 2026, beating its KES10.62 billion ($82 million) target. About 2,200 trucks pass through the crossing every day, carrying everything from fuel to food and manufactured goods.

The problem is that traders are taking shortcuts. Customs and border officials told Kenya’s National Assembly that goods still move through unofficial routes around the border, allowing businesses to dodge customs charges. That leaves traders who follow the rules paying more while their competitors find cheaper ways around the system.

The committee wants East African Community (EAC) countries to narrow their tax differences, which could make smuggling less attractive as a business decision. It also wants more drones and better scanners watching the areas around official crossings.

When doing things by the book becomes expensive enough, someone will always start looking for a back road.

Explain like I’m new here: The committee’s recommendations follow an inspection of Busia and Malaba, where officials saw two problems feeding each other. The crossings are handling more freight, but the holding yard is too small, causing delays and congestion. At the same time, tax differences between Kenya and Uganda can make it cheaper to move goods through unofficial routes. So even as Kenya collects more at the formal border, some traders still have a financial reason to avoid it.

Zoom out: Kenya is trying to solve two border problems at once: stop goods from slipping around the official system and make that system less painful for businesses that use it. Drones and scanners can help catch undeclared cargo, but they may not fix the smuggling headache. Until the tax gap narrows and trucks can cross without losing hours to congestion, that unofficial road will keep looking tempting to anyone with a calculator.

CRYPTO TRACKER

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name

Current Value

Day

Month

• 3.83%

• 24.29%

• 2.02%

• 32.56%

– 1.05%

– 3.23%

• 7.68%

• 35.15%

• Data as of 05.30 AM WAT, August 25, 2026.

Opportunities

Creative Economy Accelerator Programme. The programme is open to African startups building in music, film and media, design, and creative tech. Selected startups will receive between $20,000 and $50,000 in funding and support. Apply here by August 28.

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Written by: Frank Eleanya, Yemi Kareem, and Zia Yusuf

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade

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