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Uber ends operations in Nigeria and Uganda

Win for Uber and Bolt in Kenya

Pick n Pay’s grocery app had a bad delivery day

FNB experiences outages

World Wide Web 3

Opportunities

mobility

Uber, the ride-hailing giant, ends operations in Nigeria and Uganda

If you opened your Uber app in Nigeria or Uganda on Wednesday, hoping to get a ride somewhere, you may have seen a “No trips available” message. For some users, the breakup message also arrived directly in their inbox.

What happened? Uber has wound down operations in Nigeria and Uganda. Nigerian drivers were told they would no longer receive rider requests through the app, though Uber said it would provide a one-off goodwill payment to help them through the transition. The exits came on the same day Uber announced plans to cut about 3,300 jobs, or roughly 10% of its global workforce, as it refocuses on ride-sharing, delivery and autonomous vehicles.

Explain like I’m new here: Uber arrived in Lagos in 2014 and launched in Kampala in 2016 as part of its African expansion. But growing a ride-hailing market and making money from it are two different things. In Nigeria, Uber faced tension over fares and commissions. Drivers protested in March 2026, saying earnings and the economics of working on the platform had become difficult. Rising fuel prices, vehicle maintenance costs, competition and regulation have also made the balance harder to maintain. In August, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) tightened control over commercial ride-hailing operations at airports, restricting operators from picking up passengers.

What is Uber saying? Uber has not pointed to competition, driver disputes or FAAN’s restrictions as the reason for leaving. It said the decision followed a review of its business priorities and investment focus across Africa.

Is Uber low-key telling Africa goodbye? Uber left Côte d’Ivoire in September 2025, exited Tanzania in January, and has now left Nigeria and Uganda. This week, it also discontinued its budget UberX service in South Africa. Uber still operates in several African markets, including Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, and Egypt.

Even though the whole of Africa has not received a “it’s not you, it’s me” email from Uber yet, four market exits in roughly a year suggest the company is becoming much more selective about which African rides it wants to keep taking. For riders and drivers in Nigeria and Uganda, the immediate practical question is where they go next. Uber was not the only operator in either market: rivals such as Bolt, inDrive and local platforms like Lagos-backed LagRide continue to run services in Nigeria, and Bolt and other apps operate in Uganda, so drivers in particular will be weighing whether to migrate to those platforms — and on what terms.

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mobility

Kenya blocks 18% ride-hailing commission cap in win for Uber and Bolt

Uber may be packing its bags in Nigeria and Uganda and cutting jobs along the way, but Kenya’s ride-hailing companies have something to celebrate.

What happened? The High Court has declared parts of Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) Regulations, 2022, unconstitutional. One of the rules capped the commission ride-hailing platforms could charge at 18% of a trip’s earnings. The court also blocked the NTSA from requiring platforms to keep detailed passenger and driver records, including trip locations, times and payment details, for three years and hand them over to the authority when requested.

Explain like I’m new here: In 2022, Kenya decided the ride-hailing market needed some adult supervision. Drivers had complained that platforms were taking commissions of 25% to 30%, leaving them with less money after fuel, vehicle costs and other expenses. If a passenger paid $2 for a ride, the platform would take its agreed percentage as commission before the rest went to the driver.

The government responded with regulations covering licensing, vehicle standards, driver verification and passenger safety. The new rules said commissions could not exceed 18%. Ride-hailing platforms, including Bolt, which filed a petition in 2025, were not happy about that.

Now the court is on their side. It ruled that the government failed to follow the proper constitutional and regulatory process when creating some of those rules. On the commission cap, the court said the government had not shown enough evidence to justify restricting how platforms price their services. On the data rules, it found that forcing platforms to store and surrender detailed information about riders and drivers created an overly intrusive surveillance system.

What happens now? The court has given the government 12 months to return, complete the required public participation and impact assessment, and fix the regulations. Until then, the disputed provisions cannot be enforced. That means the 18% legal ceiling is off the road for now, giving platforms more freedom to set commissions with drivers. Whether rates eventually creep back toward the 25% to 30% that triggered the regulations in the first place remains to be seen. The ruling also lands in a market where the regulator has separately pushed other rules on digital platforms in recent years, making Kenya one of Africa’s most active battlegrounds over how far the state can go in shaping app-based transport.

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companies

Pick n Pay’s grocery app had a bad delivery day

Pick n Pay’s asap! grocery-delivery service suffered a technical glitch on Tuesday that prevented stores from assigning orders to drivers. Some morning orders were still undelivered by the end of the day, while other customers were pushed into delivery slots the next morning. Pick n Pay said the issue affected its logistics partner, which it did not name, and advised customers to use Mr D, an alternative food and grocery delivery platform, in the meantime. It later said the problem had been resolved, affected customers had been refunded in full and they had received a promotional code as an apology.

Why does this matter? The outage comes at an awkward time for Pick n Pay because online grocery is one of the retailer’s brighter growth areas. Its online on-demand sales grew 37.6% in the year to March 1, 2026, while Mr D’s grocery division recorded 38% growth and made a profit for the first time.

The incident shows the trade-off in app-based convenience: customers experience one Pick n Pay brand, even when the failure happens inside a separate logistics company. Pick n Pay can refund a missed order, but repeated delivery failures would make customers less willing to trust a service built around speed. It is also a reminder of how dependent rapid grocery delivery has become on third-party logistics partners, whose outages the brand — not the partner — absorbs publicly. The next test is whether the retailer can make its delivery network as dependable as the app and the supermarket behind it.

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banking

South Africa’s First National Bank is experiencing online outages

For several hours on Wednesday morning, some customers of First National Bank (FNB), a South African commercial bank, could not reliably log in to their apps, access their accounts, or use the bank’s website. By the time FNB restored its services, some users had already resorted to the old-fashioned solution: refreshing the page and hoping.

What happened? FNB customers began reporting intermittent problems with online banking and the FNB app from around 08:30 a.m. local time. Some users managed to log in slowly, while others received error messages or a blank page. Reports began to subside around 09:45, but access remained sporadic until FNB said its banking services were fully restored at about 12:57 p.m.

Explain like I’m new here: Online banking is not a single switch. Customers rely on several connected layers: the website or app, login and authentication services, account information and the systems that process transactions. A failure in one layer can leave someone staring at a blank screen even when the bank’s underlying accounts and payment systems are still running.

Zoom out: FNB’s app and online banking are no longer just extra channels for many customers; they are the bank. That makes a three-hour disruption more than a technical nuisance: it can stop people from checking balances, paying bills or moving money when they need to. Such outages also draw regulatory attention in South Africa, where banks are expected to keep customers informed during service disruptions. FNB restored the service, but the useful question is whether it can explain what failed and give customers a dependable fallback the next time the screen goes blank.

CRYPTO TRACKER

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name

Current Value

Day

Month

• 0.37%
• 21.64%

– 0.16%

• 29.09%

• 1.38%

• 26.92%

• 0.94%

• 36.78%

• Data as of 06.04 AM WAT, September 3, 2026.

Opportunities

Moonshot early bird ticket sales end in 6 days! This is your chance to get your Moonshot 2026 ticket at 20% off the original price. This October, Moonshot brings founders, investors, operators, creators and talent together at the National Theatre in Lagos for two days of conversations, connections, and opportunities. The Early Bird offer gives you and your network 20% off Moonshot tickets. Prices return to normal after it closes. Get your Moonshot ticket at 20% off now to secure your seat in the rooms defining Africa’s next chapter.

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Written by: Yemi Kareem and Zia Yusuf

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade

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