By Ebunoluwa Sessou

Traders of Africa (TOFA), a pan-African hub that facilitates trade with, within, and for Africa and connects African businesses and buyers to global markets with a focus on empowering African trade has launched a partnership with AliExpress, and Momo, a subsidiary of MTN to revolutionize Nigeria’s e-commerce landscape.

The partnership was strategic for revolutionizing Nigeria’s e-commerce landscape for shopping in local currencies with unrestricted access to global products competitive prices exclusive discounts and fast and reliable shipping options.

Speaking during the launch, the CEO of TOFA, Uju Uzo Ojinaka, disclosed that the partnership empowers Nigerian entrepreneurs, boosts economic development, and enhances digital infrastructure. Adding that the partnership makes it possible for people to buy on TOFA both locally and internationally.

“We’re thrilled to bridge the gap between Nigerian consumers and global markets, “This partnership underscores our commitment to innovation and economic growth.

“Increased access to global markets for Nigerian businesses. Job creation and economic growth through entrepreneurship empowerment. Enhanced customer experience through streamlined logistics and payment solutions.

“AliExpress has over 200 million products on their platform and partnering with the organization is an opportunity to allow Nigerians to place their order and pay in their local currency and other African countries.

“It is exciting and we call it shopping without borders and with the Momo platform, the payment service would be seamless not only for consumers but also for sellers.

“We are actually in partnership with the National Action Committed with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and we have become the execution arm for Africa in Nigeria, unburdening people in Africa on the platform through the AfCFTA platform.

“The idea is, that AfCFTA wants to create a single market for Africa and ensure that Africa is positioned as the marketplace where everybody comes on and people can buy African products.

“People can itemize the products they need for the festive season and buy them on AliExpress and get them delivered to their houses. You can order party packs for your events and get them delivered to you. “There are a lot of African products being showcased. So you can see your packed garri, rice, or beans and order them. Alibaba is the best in the industry,” she said.

Executive Director, MTN, Momo PSB, Mr. Usoro Usoro, said, “We opened the business for the last two years and for us, our mandate is to drive not just financial equation in Nigeria but also digital equation.

“For MTN, everybody deserves the benefit of the modern connected life, and while we do a lot of connectivity business by connecting people with our voice and data proposition.

“We will have a drive equation and connectivity to connect who needs to make payment. It is to drive digital experience and inclusion not just in Nigeria but in Africa.

“Today, we are providing that by helping businesses such as traders Of Africa on our platform and expose them to our customers and give them the payment reels that allow easy transactions, and also for our customers to make payment simply and seamlessly.

In his reaction, Deputy Manager Director, Speeder, Mr. Emeka Nwangwu, said, “We are happy to be partners with this noble initiative. We have also tried to reach out to Momo just to see how we can help distribute your cards across users in the country and we are also willing to discuss how we can partner with having our customers use their platform to pay for our service because we have two models of operation, cash service customers and corporate customers.

Representative of AliExpress Mr. Geoffrey Jiang, said, “I can see lots of potential in Africa and am familiar with the African market. We have visited the warehouses by Speeder and we have discussed with ToFA. We believe our partnership with Momo, Speeder, and TOFA would go a long way.

“AliExpress was launched in 2010 to enable global consumers to buy directly from manufacturers and distributors in China and around the world,” he said.