How to use the OpenAI, Claude and Gemini APIs from Nigeria, paid in naira

Call GPT, Claude, Gemini and 90+ other AI models from Nigeria without a dollar card: top up in naira by bank transfer and change one line in the OpenAI SDK.

Updated 7 November 2026

If you build software in Nigeria, the hard part of using the big AI APIs is often not the code. It is paying. Provider billing usually expects a card that clears international dollar charges, and many Nigerian cards are declined for those charges or have low dollar limits.

This guide shows how to use the same models through Bridge, which bills in naira and takes bank transfers. Your code barely changes.

What you need

• A Bridge account. It is free to create.
• Naira in your Bridge balance, added by bank transfer.
• An API key from the console.
• Any OpenAI-compatible client: the official OpenAI SDK for Python or JavaScript, or plain HTTP.

Step 1: create an account and add naira

Sign up at bridge.wekoya.tech with your email. Add your phone number in the console to get your own account number, then transfer to it from any Nigerian bank app. The money usually lands in your balance within a minute. There is no subscription: you pay only for the requests you make, and every request shows its cost in naira.

New accounts can also get ₦2,000 of welcome credit when they set up their account number, one per person.

Step 2: create an API key

In the console, open Keys and create a key. Keep it on your server: never put it in a mobile app, a web page or a public repository. You can set a naira spending limit on each key.

Step 3: point the OpenAI SDK at Bridge

Bridge follows the OpenAI chat completions format, so you keep your code and change two things: the base URL and the key. In Python:

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://wekoya-api.wekoya.tech/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["WEKOYA_API_KEY"],
)

reply = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-6-luna",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a one-line welcome message for a Lagos bakery."}],
)
print(reply.choices[0].message.content)

To use Claude or Gemini instead, change the model name, for example to claude-sonnet-5-5 or gemini-3.7-flash. Nothing else changes. With model "auto", Bridge picks a model for each request. In JavaScript:

import OpenAI from "openai"

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://wekoya-api.wekoya.tech/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.WEKOYA_API_KEY,
})

const reply = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "claude-sonnet-5-5",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Summarise this customer complaint in one sentence." }],
})
console.log(reply.choices[0].message.content)

What it costs

Models are priced per million tokens. A token is roughly three quarters of a word. On 7 November 2026, a short chat request of about 1,000 tokens in and 500 tokens out cost about ₦0.52 on GPT-6 Luna and about ₦10.40 on Claude Sonnet 5.5. Prices follow the exchange rate, so the models and pricing page shows today's price for every model.

Already pay a provider directly?

If you already have an OpenAI, Anthropic or Google account, you can add your own key to Bridge and keep paying them directly, while still using one connection and one usage record for every model.

Good to know

• Streaming, tool calling, and images and PDFs in chat work as they do with the OpenAI SDK.
• If a provider fails before it starts answering, Bridge retries on another route that serves the same model.
• Bridge does not save the prompts or replies of your requests.
• Bridge is built and run by Wekoya Ltd in Nigeria. It is not affiliated with OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.

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