Business News
Nigerians to lose more jobs as Safeboda exits Nigeria
Only three months have passed since the company added car-hailing to its list of services in addition to bike-hailing.
Following today’s statement by Ugandan ride-hailing company Safeboda that it will leave the Nigerian market, thousands of motorbike riders and drivers from that country may suddenly find themselves on the job market.
Only three months have passed since the company added car-hailing to its list of services in addition to bike-hailing.
Although the specifics of the company’s exit are still hazy as of the time of writing, a company official who wished to remain unnamed said that the company will be leaving the nation. She verified that passengers and drivers on the platform will be disengaged but did not provide any other information.
One of the bike riders on the platform in Ibadan, however, claimed he was unaware that the business was preparing to leave the nation when Nairametrics spoke with him. The cyclist, who was stunned by the information, said:
“As of this morning, everything was still proceeding normally; such information is not available. Nothing has been disclosed to us.
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Given that the company had just just introduced a new product, this is a surprise development. The car-hailing service SafeCar was introduced by the transportation company in Uganda and Nigeria earlier in September of this year. Co-founder of SafeBoda Rapa Ricky Thomson announced the launch in the following manner:
“We’re very excited to launch SafeCar in our super App with a safer, more convenient solution than what is offered in the market. We’ve talked to drivers and passengers, tested our product, and we are going to change transportation in Uganda forever, we are going completely cashless.”
The bike-hailing startup earlier in March celebrated reaching 4 million rides, 50,000 deliveries, and more than 10,000 riders and 100,000 passengers. Although the firm was established in Ibadan, Nigeria, operations didn’t start until March 2020.
Since its establishment in 2017, SafeBoda has left a market a second time. After expanding its services to Nairobi less than two years earlier, SafeBoda left Kenya in 2020. It said that it left Kenya because COVID-19 had a negative impact on its business.