Driven by deep continental insight, Ghanaian entrepreneur Nana Osei Afrifa is challenging global tech giants by expanding Afrifanom with VaMijo, which aims to become Africa’s major ride-hailing and courier platform.
For more than a decade, Ghana’s technology story has largely been told by foreign platforms expanding into one of West Africa’s most promising digital markets. Uber arrived. Bolt followed. Others came and went. Few expected a local company to believe it could compete, let alone harbour ambitions of becoming Africa’s largest ride-hailing platform.
Nana Osei Afrifa does.
The founder and chief executive of Afrifanom, formerly Vokacom, is not entering the market as a newcomer chasing a trend. He sees VaMijo (meaning ‘let’s go’ in Ewe) as the latest chapter in a two-decade journey to build digital infrastructure for Africa – one that began long before ride-hailing became fashionable.
He compares VaMijo’s ambitions to MTN’s rise from a South African mobile operator to Africa’s telecommunications leader. The company succeeded by understanding African markets rather than importing foreign business models.
“We have to become the number one ride-hailing platform on this continent in 10 years. VaMijo is the next MTN.”
Gaining traction in Ghana
It is a bold ambition in a market dominated by global companies backed by billions of dollars in venture capital. Yet Afrifa says that Africa’s mobility market has been misunderstood by outsiders, who continue to apply a one-size-fits-all model to the continent.
“What we have, however, is resilience and knowledge of the continent,” he said. “Nobody is coming from anywhere in the world to know our continent better than we do.”
The early figures suggest that Ghanaian consumers are at least willing to give the local challenger a chance. Since its commercial launch in May, VaMijo has completed 31,614 rides, attracted 10,857 customers – of which around 6,000 have booked multiple trips – and signed up 3,350 drivers who have collectively earned more than ¢1.67m ($143,000) on the platform.
For a company competing against Uber and Bolt, the figures remain modest, yet they indicate meaningful traction in one of Africa’s most competitive ride-hailing markets.
Eyeing the African market
Afrifa adds that VaMijo is not trying to win by becoming the cheapest platform. “We don’t want to be the cheapest brand on the market,” he says. “We also don’t want to be the most expensive. What we are offering is being done by Ghanaians for Ghanaians.”
That philosophy extends beyond Ghana. When VaMijo expands into the DRC, Equatorial Guinea and Angola – markets that Afrifa says are already showing interest – the company plans to adopt the same formula: local technology teams, local management and services tailored to each country’s realities, rather than copying a single model across Africa.
It is a lesson, he says, that many global platforms have yet to learn. “Every nation is different from the next. Most people come with one-size-fits-all policies that never work.”
Afrifa’s confidence is rooted partly in his previous success.
Pioneering digital address system
Long before VaMijo, he developed Ghana’s pioneering digital address system, an innovation now used by more than five million people and adopted across government and private-sector logistics. Courier companies, healthcare providers and the National Service Authority rely on the platform.
The system emerged from an unexpected business problem. Years earlier, while running a rent-support business, Afrifa realised that his company could not locate many tenants after a staff member left with the handwritten customer records. He built a digital addressing system to solve the problem internally, and eventually adapted it for national use.
At first, critics dismissed it as a Google Maps imitation. “They didn’t understand the difference between an address and a pin.” Time, he says, has vindicated the concept. Today, Google’s mapping services increasingly incorporate coded addressing, while Afrifanom continues discussions with Google about potential areas of collaboration.
More importantly, Ghana remains the first country to adopt a nationwide digital address as its official addressing system. That achievement has quietly transformed Afrifanom into one of Ghana’s most enduring software companies.
Afrifanom’s expansion
Founded in 2004, the business has endured for more than two decades in an industry where, according to Afrifa, many software firms struggle to survive beyond two years. Its work now spans digital payments, healthcare, logistics, higher education and government technology.
“As a businessman, you are either making money or you are making noise. You have to decide which one you are.” — Nana Osei Afrifa.
That philosophy partly explains why Afrifa remains relatively unknown despite developing one of Ghana’s most widely used digital services. Instead of chasing headlines, he says the company has focused on building products.
The strategy has also influenced VaMijo’s expansion. Rather than raising enormous sums to subsidise rides indefinitely, a model many global ride-hailing companies have pursued, Afrifanom is seeking to build sustainable businesses tailored to local economic realities.
The challenge is formidable. Ride-hailing remains an expensive business, requiring constant investment in technology, driver incentives, customer acquisition and regulatory compliance. International rivals possess vastly larger financial resources and years of operational experience.
Afrifa does not dispute the imbalance. “They can raise a billion dollars in six weeks,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of luxury.”
But he argues that capital alone does not guarantee victory. His broader vision extends beyond transport. Afrifanom is developing digital healthcare platforms to monitor hypertension and diabetes remotely, while continuing to export Ghana’s digital addressing expertise to countries including Liberia, Uganda, Namibia, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.
Source: The Africa Report
