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Low patronage, soaring fuel prices, vehicle maintenance costs compel withdrawals
By Cosmas Omegoh
Something about e-hailing ride, particularly in Lagos, seems to have snapped without notice.
Over time, that digital service which helps riders to connect drivers through their mobile app seems to be experiencing some setback.
According to our correspondent’s findings, some operators have been forced to withdraw their vehicles and services on account of a number of factors – high cost of fuel, rising cost of vehicle maintenance and poor returns on investment among others.
Drivers who are sustaining the system at the moment are merely struggling to eke out their daily living. Some of their colleagues have quietly quit, preferring alternative means of livelihood in other sectors.
Tony, 30, shared a perspective that suggests that all is not well with the e-hailing family. Penultimate weekend, Tony said he attended a social event in the Yaba area of Lagos.
He said at about 5 pm, he concluded it was time to go home. He lives in Isheri-Oshun, a part of bustling Lagos.
Tony is buoyant enough to afford an e-hailing services; he patronises them always.
From where he was, he trotted to Herbert Macaulay Road, Yaba, from where he considered it more conveniently to pick a cab home. So he wiped out his mobile phone and called a driver he sighted on a popular e-hailing platform.
“Hello,” he bellowed out. “I’m a little away from St Dominic Catholic Church, Yaba Gate. Can you come quickly and get me?”
He said the first driver he called responded that he could not be there in good time and therefore advised him to try another person; he was sorting out an issue with a passenger. So Tony tried another driver who arrived promptly; his car was a metallic ash-coloured Toyota Camry.
“Good evening sir!” he greeted him. “Here I am. Where do I take you to sir?
“I’m going to Isheri-Oshun near NNPC filling station on the Jakande Gate – Ijegun expressway,” Tony answered him.
So, finding Tony’s destination on the Google map, the driver beckoned him in and the journey began.
Within seconds, the car was racing towards Jibowu, pressing for the ever-busy Ikorodu Road. Then both men got talking.
“So, how is the business bro,” Tony asked, intent on feeling the purse of the man on the wheels.
He said the driver’s answers were an eye-opener that the economy was not particularly kind to those operating e-hailing taxis even when they seem to wear a toga of glamour. The encounter seemed a clear opportunity the young man had been waiting for to vent his frustrations.
“Oga, it hasn’t been easy oo,” the lad reportedly said, his tone dripping with the bottled emotions his voice alone could not reveal.
“This is not the best time to be in this business. But what else do we do?
“You make all the money, but by the time you have bought fuel for the car, you go home with little or nothing.”
Curious, Tony probed further to know what the real issues were. And the young man was ready to talk.
“I’m a graduate; I have been without a job for a long while. So when I had this opportunity, I held it.
“But the reality is that the money you make drains very quickly. So survival is the word.
“You could make N100, 000 just now, but what about fuelling the car? Sometimes that might take the whole money you have laboured to make all day.
“Your air conditioner must be on 24/7 otherwise no passenger will use you. Of course, you know that if your car does not have that, passengers will not take it. In fact, that is one of the conditions for a car to be accepted and registered by e-hailing companies in the first place.
“Cars with air conditioners guzzle a lot of fuel. That everyone knows.
“Again, you could roam the town burning your fuel without anyone hailing you. So you waste your fuel and lose revenue too.
“Now, see, the economy is bad. So, a lot of people are hard pressed nowadays. So the truth is that we are struggling to survive in this business.”
Tony said the driver also went on to blame the high cost of car maintenance as part of the problem facing operators of e-hailing cabs.
“Now, remember that even from the little you make, you must maintain your vehicle. The cost of motor spare parts these days is out of this world. If your car is not sound, it then means that you are not in business.
“Imagine you are taking a passenger to their destination and your car stops in the middle of the road. Of course, the passenger will be livid. Some will yell at you unendingly. No one wishes to let that happen to him. That’s why your vehicle must be in good condition all the time. It costs a lot of money to do that these days.”
When our correspondent recently met IK, a former e-hailing driver, he had similar complaints to make. His words confirmed the growing suspicion that drivers operating e-haling taxis are indeed groaning.
IK said he quit the trade some time ago. He now operates a commercial tricycle. He disclosed that he had to sell off his car to buy a tricycle which he revealed is a lot more cost effective to operate.
“I now have peace,” he said calmly.
“I had to withdraw my car from the e-hailing company, and thereafter sold it off. That was better for me. With the proceeds I bought the commercial tricycle I now operate.
“But of what benefit is it to me if I make N150,000 daily and spend more than N130,000 on fuel?” he queried.
“Yet, every week, I would take my car for maintenance. I was spending my entire earnings on fuelling and car maintenance. Yet I have a family of five to cater to.
“So, one day I said to myself: ‘Isn’t this needless? There is no future in this.’
“So, I decided to sell the car.
“My wife fought the idea, but she could not defeat it. I wore the shoe and knew where it was pinching me.”
IK said he now feels relieved operating his commercial tricycle rather than cruising around town in his taxi cab.
“One great thing about a tricycle is that it doesn’t consume one tenth of the amount of fuel a car consumes daily.
“You could buy let’s say N5,000 worth of fuel daily and use it to make close to N30,000 if not more and still go home with something handsome. Isn’t that better?
“And what is more: a tricycle does not take from you – in terms of maintenance – as much as it gives you.
“You could operate it for close to two weeks without taking it to any mechanic.
“It is true that you could make much more money driving a taxi, but fuelling and maintenance costs also take everything from you. So what’s the point?” he asked.
IK said he had no regret taking the action he took, adding that he preferred that to labouring in vain.
“Riding a Keke Marwa can be stressful,” he remarked. “But what else would one do in Nigeria today?”
Also among those who quit operating digital e-hailing taxis lately is Nosa.
When Nosa hinted about leaving the job in March this year, his friends considered his decision a bad idea.
Like the rest of his colleagues, Nosa had complained that he was making virtually nothing driving people about town.
Nosa lived in Itire, a part of Surulere in Lagos State. But to ensure he made more money, he preferred to operate most of the time in upmarket areas where his services were better needed by those who could afford it.
“I always operated on the Lekki-Ajaa corridor. I was always around the Sangotedo area. That’s where more people could hail you. I never left the area until late.
“But all the money I made always went – just like that!
“Every month, I was always broke. So why work that hard and earn practically nothing?” he asked.
So Nosa quit. And today, he said he works with a logistics outfit.
Another fellow who left the e-hailing taxi driving long before the trio is Pius.
Before Pius ventured into the business, he was self-employed; he was offering cleaning and fumigation services.
But close to two years later, he dropped the job to try something else.
“It was a tough decision,” he recalled.
“I was responsible for fuelling the car and maintaining it too.
“The police will stop you and take their cut. The e-hailing company will take theirs. You return home with very little. Yet I had to make returns to the car owner.
“But that was not the reason I left,” he recalled.
“Then, there was also the risk to life – that of being on the roads all the time.
“Sometimes, car hijackers pretending to be genuine passengers will hire you and ask you to take them to a part of the town; you might not resist that.
“When they began to rob and kill drivers some time ago, I had to quit,” he added.
