This month, MTN began shutting down Ayoba and Moniepoint acquired restaurant startup Orda, two developments tied to the same ambition of building Africa’s ‘everything app’.
OPay tried it first, flooding the streets of Lagos with green ORide helmets and OFood delivery bags before a regulatory hammer and the economics of logistics forced a retreat to pure fintech. Jumia tried it, bundling everything from travel bookings to food delivery, only to spend the last two years amputating those same limbs to save the torso.
MTN’s Ayoba, despite having the massive distribution of a continental carrier and the promise of data-free usage, couldn’t sustain the super app dream. By the time it announced its shutdown on March 20, 2026, it had become a cautionary tale of an app that did a dozen things adequately while its users only wanted one thing done perfectly.
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Last updated: March 24, 2026
