Nigerians rushed to buy a piece of Africa’s largest oil refinery on Monday. The apps they use to do it could not keep up.
Bamboo and Cowrywise, two of Nigeria’s largest investment platforms, went down within hours of the opening of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s initial public offering. Users trying to log in saw error messages, stalled pages, and failed transactions.
For a company selling shares to first-time investors, the timing was brutal.
A $1.6 billion offer, and a rush to get in
The refinery, controlled by the billionaire Aliko Dangote, opened its offer on September 14. It is selling 4.1 billion new shares at 525 naira each, seeking to raise about 2.15 trillion naira, or roughly $1.6 billion. The minimum buy-in is just 10 shares, about 5,250 naira, a price point designed to pull in ordinary Nigerians rather than only institutional buyers.
Dangote has said he wants to add 10 million retail investors to the refinery’s shareholder base. The offer runs through about 55 approved channels, including bank apps, the Nigerian Exchange’s own platform, and fintechs like Bamboo, Cowrywise, Flutterwave, Moniepoint, Paga and PiggyVest.
That inclusive pitch is exactly what strained the fintechs’ systems.
The apps go dark
Bamboo told users on social media that traffic into the app was far higher than expected. Cowrywise posted a similar message minutes later. Both said engineers were working on fixes.
The numbers explain the surge. In the week before the IPO opened, Bamboo added more than 236,000 new accounts, the company said. About 152,000 of those, or 64 percent, were funded and trading within the same week. That week alone topped Bamboo’s previous best month for signups.
Cowrywise said its systems were restored within about an hour. Bamboo took longer. The company did not give a timeline as it worked through the backlog, leaving some investors locked out during the offer’s opening hours.
Bamboo’s apology
Bamboo’s CEO Richmond Bassey addressed users directly once the app was back:
“We are also really disappointed that we couldn’t give you a seamless experience to start off your investment journey into the Dangote Refinery IPO. We know we let you down, and we take full responsibility, and we’re going to work to make it up to you. Our team worked hard to prepare for the increased demand but ultimately, our efforts fell significantly short.”
The company said it restored full service a day before making the apology public, to confirm everything worked properly first.
“We know an apology doesn’t fix the frustration you experienced. Trust is earned through action, and we’re committed to earning yours back.”
A fee cut, and a longer runway
Bamboo is following the apology with a concrete offer: a 20 percent cut to commissions on both U.S. and Nigerian Exchange stock trades, starting the day after the announcement and running through the end of September.
The company is also reminding users they have not missed their chance. The Dangote offer stays open until October 13. The share price will not change before then, and shares will not be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis — meaning users who were locked out Monday are not at a disadvantage for having logged in late.
Why it matters
The outage is a stress test not just for Bamboo and Cowrywise, but for the broader idea behind the IPO: using fintech apps to bring millions of ordinary people into stock ownership for the first time. Bamboo alone has handled a significant share of all equity trades on the Nigerian Exchange this year, making it a de facto front door to the market for retail investors.
A crash on day one risks turning off exactly the first-time investors the offer is trying to reach. Bamboo’s response — a public apology, a fee cut and a month-long window to try again — is a bet that goodwill and a lower price can undo the damage of a bad first impression.
For now, the refinery’s shares are still on offer, the price is fixed, and the platforms say they are stronger than they were on Monday morning. Whether that is enough to win back frustrated investors will play out over the next month.
