Nigerian fintech giant Paystack has suspended its co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ezra Olubi, after years-old tweets containing sexually explicit comments allegedly involving minors resurfaced and spread rapidly across X on Thursday.
The company confirmed it had initiated a formal investigation into the allegations, which have sparked widespread backlash and heightened scrutiny of online conduct in Africa’s tech sector.
“Paystack is aware of the allegations involving our Co-founder, Ezra Olubi. We take matters of this nature extremely seriously. Effective immediately, Ezra has been suspended from all duties and responsibilities pending the outcome of a formal investigation,” the company said.
It added that no further comments would be issued until the investigation concludes, citing respect for all parties involved and the need to maintain the integrity of the process.
The tweets, reportedly posted between 2009 and 2013, contained explicit content referencing minors and sexualized anime characters. The posts reignited public debate about Olubi, who is no stranger to controversy due to his unconventional fashion choices. In 2022, he received the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) from former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Following the social media uproar, Olubi deactivated his X account on November 13 and has not publicly addressed the allegations.
Paystack, founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Olubi, has grown into one of Africa’s leading payment infrastructure companies. Accepted into Y Combinator in 2016, the startup later raised funding rounds backed by Stripe, Visa, Tencent, and others, culminating in Stripe’s acquisition of the company in 2020 in a deal worth an estimated $200 million. Its growing influence across Africa has made the handling of the current investigation a closely watched development in the tech space.
Olubi’s suspension comes at a time of heightened national concern over child sexual abuse in Nigeria. On October 21, the Nigerian Senate passed amendments to the Criminal Code Act, mandating life imprisonment for anyone convicted of defiling a minor, eliminating fines, removing gender bias in rape definitions, and abolishing the statute of limitation on defilement cases.
The unfolding situation surrounding Olubi is expected to continue generating public discussion on corporate accountability, digital footprints, and child protection in Nigeria’s evolving legal environment.
