WhatsApp users in Nigeria and several other countries experienced widespread service disruptions on Monday night, leaving millions unable to send messages, make calls or access some features of the messaging platform.
The outage began at about 9 p.m. Nigerian time, with users reporting undelivered messages, failed voice and video calls and difficulties uploading status updates.
Checks by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) showed that affected users turned to other social media platforms to determine whether the disruption was widespread, while outage monitoring platforms recorded a sharp increase in reports.
Users in several countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Spain and Colombia, also reported similar difficulties, suggesting that the disruption was not limited to Nigeria or a particular region.
An Abuja resident, Rukayya Yusuf, said the outage disrupted communication with her family and colleagues.
“I initially thought it was my internet connection, but after trying everything, I realised WhatsApp was down. I had to switch to another messaging app to stay in touch,” she said.
Usman Maigari, a digital entrepreneur, said the disruption also affected customer communication and business transactions.
“Most of my clients contact me through WhatsApp. The outage delayed responses and affected my business because I couldn’t communicate with customers in real time,” he said.
As of the time of filing this report, Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, had yet to issue an official statement explaining the cause of the disruption or indicate when full service would be restored.
