When I sat down to have this conversation, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask first. And maybe this makes me sound like a stereotypical Nigerian, but the question had been on my mind for weeks for the founders of Spleet Africa:
How do you build trust between landlords and tenants in Nigeria?
Not in theory. Not in policy. In real life. In chaotic apartment viewings, where the “agent” doesn’t look like who they said they were. In a system where you’re expected to pay one or two years of rent upfront, no matter your income level or stage in life.
If you’ve ever tried renting a house in Nigeria, you know that trust isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s survival. The housing market here runs on informal relationships and opaque practices. Landlords worry about damage, delayed rent, or squatter tenants. Tenants worry about fake listings, impossible terms, and ghost agents. Everyone’s watching their back, and very few are extending trust forward.
So when I heard about Spleet Africa, I was intrigued.
A Start-Up Born From Struggle
Daniella Ajala, CEO and co-founder of Spleet Africa, is building a different kind of rental experience, one grounded in transparency, structure, and accessibility.
Like many meaningful ventures, Spleet Africa was born out of personal pain. Daniella’s co-founder, Dolapo Adedayo, had just returned from studying abroad when he struggled to find a safe, affordable place to rent.
“He couldn’t afford to live where he wanted to live. And so he managed to convince one landlord to rent out an apartment to him in Lekki, and he was able to pay monthly for that apartment,” Ajala said. The listings he found were often outdated or fake. The agents were inconsistent. The prices were unpredictable. That experience sparked the idea for a platform that could offer clarity in an otherwise murky system.
When Daniella relocated from the UK to Nigeria herself, she encountered the same challenges and something clicked. The Nigerian rental system wasn’t built for mobility, digital natives, or people without deep local connections. There were too many middlemen, too few protections, and no real standard for accountability.
Together, she and Dolapo Adedayo decided to build a solution. A platform that could vet landlords and tenants alike, verify listings, offer flexible rent structures, and bring some long-overdue structure to the chaos. She says, “we do ID checks. Employment checks to make sure that they do. They work where they say they work. They are who they think they are” and that solution became Spleet Africa.
Trust, One Tenant at a Time
At Spleet Africa, trust isn’t a marketing buzzword. From identity verification and facility inspections to tenant onboarding and payment systems, every feature is designed to reduce friction and restore confidence.
“We knew we had to create something that didn’t just look good,” Daniella tells me. “It had to work. And it had to feel safe.”
To get there, the team introduced rigorous screening processes on both sides of the rental relationship. Tenants go through identity checks. Landlords have their properties physically assessed before they’re listed. This reduces fake or exaggerated listings and ensures tenants know exactly what they’re signing up for no surprises, no scams.
But Daniella is quick to admit that technology alone isn’t enough. The Nigerian real estate market isn’t just broken because of inefficiency, it’s broken because of culture, informality, and deep-rooted mistrust.
“In this industry, anyone can wake up and decide they’re an agent,” she says. “There’s no accountability. No vetting. That’s part of what we’re trying to change.”
It’s an uphill battle. Real estate in Nigeria is male-dominated, under-regulated, and slow to trust newcomers, especially young women disrupting the status quo. Daniella has faced skepticism, pushback, and plenty of moments where walking away would have been easier.
But she didn’t. And she credits her co-founder, early believers, and community of supporters for helping her push through the noise.
Rewriting the Rules of Rent
One of the most radical things Spleet Africa offers isn’t even tech. It’s flexibility.
In a market where renters are expected to cough up 12 to 24 months of rent upfront, Daniella is advocating for a better path: structured, flexible rent plans that give people room to breathe.
This is especially important for freelancers, returning diasporans, or young professionals navigating uncertain cash flow. Why should someone with a steady income but no bulk savings be shut out of decent housing?
“At the heart of what we’re doing is accessibility,” Daniella says. “People should be able to live well without going into debt to do it.”
As Spleet Africa prepares for a major product relaunch in Q4, Daniella is focused on two things: user feedback and long-term growth. The goal isn’t just to scale. It’s to stay adaptable in an economy that shifts constantly, and to build real solutions for real people.
Her advice to fellow founders? “Start with trust. The tech comes after.”
A New Kind of Infrastructure
The more we talked, the clearer it became: trust isn’t built with code. It’s built through conversations, consistency, and care.
Whether it’s calling a tenant before rent is due, checking in on a leak complaint, or making sure a landlord knows exactly who’s moving in, these small actions create reliability. They show up where the system doesn’t. And in a place like Nigeria, those human moments are the real infrastructure.
Spleet Africa is still young. The market is still messy, but something is shifting. Tenants are beginning to expect better. Landlords are asking smarter questions. And more importantly, founders like Daniella Ajala are proving that you can build trust in a broken system, if you’re willing to do the work.