- The app, billed as the world’s first for the Yoruba community, uses cultural matchmaking principles to pair singles.
- Tech expert Anjola Awofisoye has unveiled Yetunde, described as the world’s first Yoruba dating app, now available on Google Play for Android users.
Tech expert Anjola Awofisoye has unveiled Yetunde, described as the world’s first Yoruba dating app, now available on Google Play for Android users. Awofisoye, a software and digital product developer with over ten years of professional experience, told reporters the platform targets single Yoruba men and women who want life partners, not casual encounters.
The app is live. Reaction on social media, where the announcement first broke on Friday, June 19, 2026, has been swift, drawing hundreds of comments within twelve hours of the post going up.
Awofisoye and his team built Yetunde specifically for the Yoruba community, positioning it as the first application of its kind dedicated entirely to that group. The name Yetunde, a Yoruba word meaning “mother returns,” carries weight inside the culture and was chosen deliberately, as gathered by Westtrybe. The platform includes ID checks and secure verification features, which Awofisoye’s team says protects user safety and maintains trust across the app.
The design of Yetunde draws from the Yoruba concept of the alarina, an intermediary figure who historically passed messages between a man and a woman, knowing both parties and bridging the gap between them. Awofisoye told reporters: “The idea behind the Yetunde app is pretty much the philosophy of using the old ways of doing things to solve modern-day problems.” That framing sets the app apart from generic swipe-based platforms already crowding the Nigerian mobile market.
Awofisoye noted that the matching model raises the probability of finding a compatible partner, arguing that users will not spend hours swiping without result. The platform targets a global Yoruba audience, with the app’s own description citing Lagos, London, and Los Angeles as three cities where it expects to connect users. That diaspora angle is intentional, and it widens the potential user base well beyond Southwest Nigeria’s estimated 47 million Yoruba speakers.
Profiles on Yetunde are built for substantive conversation rather than casual swiping, and users can express their personalities through Yoruba-inspired prompts, greetings, and cultural cues built into the interface. Documents seen by Westtrybe show the app listed under the package name com.alarena. Yetunde on the Google Play Store, a direct reference to the Alarina tradition. The iOS version had not been confirmed available as of Saturday morning, June 20, 2026.
Awofisoye confirmed by phone that the matchmaking algorithm pairs users based on shared community values, not only physical preference. The initiative was inspired by the need to provide a culturally relevant platform for Yoruba men and women, with the aim of transforming cultural connections into lasting relationships through verified matches. He added that the team spent considerable time studying how traditional Yoruba families historically arranged and endorsed courtship before building the app’s core logic.
No subscription pricing structure was publicly announced by Awofisoye’s team before this edition went to press. But competition in Nigeria’s dating app sector is real, with several general-market platforms already reporting millions of downloads across the country. Whether a culture-specific product can carve a durable niche remains a question the market will answer. Tech expert Anjola Awofisoye and the Yetunde app have opened that conversation, and Westtrybe will continue to track the platform’s rollout in coming weeks.
