![]() ![]() Outages like this not only cease communication, but also put people at risk, as many important services are delivered via the platform. “Everyone around me did." The belief that the instant messaging app wasn’t going to come back caused many to worry, unsure what to do-and how they would communicate-if the rumor turned out to be reality. ![]() What if something was happening and she wanted to call me? Or I needed help with something important?” Worse, Peters heard that WhatsApp would be deleted entirely. ![]() "That was when I became worried, because WhatsApp is our major means of communication. I thought it was a network issue until my nephew told me it wasn't," Nkechinyere Peters, who lives in Umuahia, says. "I sent a message to my daughter, and it didn't deliver. When WhatsApp went down in Nigeria, panic ensued, accompanied by rumors that the service would never come back. Having everyone on the same platform can be convenient, but the outage shows that Nigeria’s reliance on the app can be catastrophic-and that it’s time to look into alternatives. Over 95 percent of Nigeria’s 33 million social media users use the platform. In Nigeria, WhatsApp is the major means of communication with family both at home and abroad, and is also used for business. Though the Facebook outage was an inconvenience for many users in the US and Europe, its effects were felt far more harshly in other areas of the world, where the company and its platforms are utterly dominant. "I ended the day with five orders, and wondered where I was going to start from if WhatsApp stayed down, because that is where all my customers are.” But when I couldn't access it, I began to worry because I had just put up the new items I got on my status and sent a few to my customers," Ibukunle says. "I just started my brand, and I use WhatsApp for Business because it is easy. But on October 5, when WhatsApp was down globally (alongside other Facebook platforms) for eight hours, her business took a big hit. She uses WhatsApp to advertise her products and process orders from customers, typically receiving 20 orders per day. Tomiwa Ibukunle, a 21-year-old entrepreneur in Lagos, Nigeria, started her clothing and accessories business two months ago. ![]()
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