Today was a sad day for me. I applied to a job online that would allow me earn a full-time income by Nigerian standards (about $1000 a month). I qualified for this job after a rigorous screening process but when it was time to setup my work info, I found out that the company makes payments only via paypal and at the moment, Nigerians cannot receive payments with their paypal accounts.
This hasn't happened to just me. In fact, this isn't the only instance. Imagine spending countless hours building a product to sell in a marketplace only to find that they make their payments exclusively via paypal? This is the situation for countless Nigerians who are motivated and looking to make money online and who insist on doing so with integrity.

Nigeria is a country filled with a lot of poor people (by global standards) with very limited opportunities hence the need to seek opportunities to make a living online. A job that pays $1000 a month is enough to make you a happy Nigerian and this sort of job is not exactly easy to find in the country.

The internet presents willing Nigerians with opportunity. The opportunity to earn their living legitimately online. However Paypal - the 'industry standard' for online payments makes this opportunity inaccessible to Nigerians in most cases. Making mass payouts is a relatively easy task when done using Paypal's business platform. Hence most internet businesses ( even those that welcome a global workforce) choose to make payments to their workers via Paypal. Nigerians, who qualify to be a part of the workforce for some internet companies are however not able to receive payments simply because we can't receive payments with Nigerian Paypal accounts.

I understand that Nigeria doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to scams and internet fraud. However, a lot has changed in the country over the years and internet fraud is no longer popular among the Nigerians who carry out numerous transactions online.
Thankfully, Nigerians can use their paypal accounts to purchase items from so many websites (even websites that don't process Nigerian credit cards). However, the problem remains that, for some reason(s), Nigerians can't receive payments via Paypal.

It's not news that at the moment, Nigeria is a third-world country. Most Nigerians don't earn in a year what the average citizen of a developed country can make in a month. There just aren't many good jobs in Nigeria and the lack of basic infrastructure makes it very difficult and expensive for foreign investors to invest. Unemployment rates are high and it's harder than ever to maintain a decent living standard. The internet presents hope for a lot of people facing almost similar and in many cases better conditions in their countries.

The internet presents an opportunity for everyone to be a part of a global community where you can earn money legitimately provided you're qualified and able to work. This hope is blurred for most Nigerians because we currently can't receive money via the most popular payment platform.

Payoneer could have been the perfect alternative because it processes payments to Nigerians and in fact, many Nigerians use Payoneer to receive funds. However, Payoneer is not as popular among business owners as Paypal so there is still a lot of opportunity Nigerians don't have access to.

The goal of this petition is to urge Paypal to re-access the situation. There's a really vast market of Nigerians who will happily subscribe to Paypal's services once we are able to receive payments and manage business accounts. At the moment, a lot of qualified, hard working Nigerians can't make money online simply because they can't receive payments via Paypal. These are individuals who have been offered project and job contracts that they can't take advantage of because they can't receive their pay using Nigerian Paypal accounts.
Please, support this petition to make all of Paypal's features completely accessible in Nigeria.

opson2016:
PayPal wants Nigerians to be spending via PayPal only, it places barrier on receiving payment. This has affected lots of Nigerians who would have made legit money courtesy their skills.
It's not just PayPal, template monster affiliate program, avangate etc are some of the international firms that have barred Nigerian from making a living online.
But these companies have failed to realize that when you put restriction on anything, you're promoting illegality indirectly.
Despite the PayPal restriction, some still use the Backdoor means to receive PayPal payment.
I urge PayPal to revisit this issue.
Thanks, for raising this issue.
To support your campaign and petition, I'll try to publish this on my blog.
If you're chanced, let's chat on whatsapp 08065277758

kelvinnaira:
Recently, an advertiser contacted me on my blog requesting for a sponsored review.. We entered an amount ($100 to be specific) which we both agreed on, he sent the aricle and all other details for the publication.
He in turn requested for my paypal account email so as to send in my payment.. Up until now, that deal is still standing there without attention.. A deal that would have been closed by now. This is not the first time this type of thing is happening..

ndividual:


I've been there. I've lost two sure-deals because of this paypal issue. That's why we need to spread this petition around. If we can't even get enough signatures it would only reinforce the paypal's perception that we don't need it.

CBUY:
They are afraid of 'Yahoo Yahoo' people. I wonder if this yahoo guys are only found in Nigeria.