Useful contact numbers added to Members area...
In what some are dubbing the "Uber rapture," the ride-hailing pioneer has abruptly quit Nigeria and Uganda. Far from drivers and their cars ascending to some surge-priced afterlife, users reported the service shutting down while rides were still underway. "A friend of mine said they were on a ride when they got the message," one observer wrote on X. "She told the driver and he said, 'It's a lie!'" – a phrase widely used in Nigeria to express disbelief or call out what one perceives to be bullshit. Unfortunately for drivers who rely on the platform for their livelihood, it wasn't. The shutdown came with little apparent warning. In both countries, Uber sent notices on September 2 saying the service would cease that same day.... The exits come amid a wider Uber restructuring that will cut more than 3,000 jobs, reduce management layers, and free up cash for investment in areas including autonomous vehicles, according to the BBC.Uber launched in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, in 2014 and expanded into Uganda two years later. In Nigeria's traffic-choked commercial hub of Lagos, it even launched a boat service in 2019 to help commuters bypass the gridlock. Uber offered no explanation beyond its boilerplate about changing priorities, but Nigeria had become a tough place to make the ride-hailing sums work. Drivers had complained that fares failed to keep pace with soaring fuel costs while Uber's commissions remained stubbornly high, and the company faced growing competition from Bolt, inDrive, and local rivals, according to the BBC. The removal of Nigeria's fuel subsidy in 2023 pushed up operating costs, while inflation and another rise in petrol prices this year squeezed drivers further. Uber has not said whether those pressures prompted its exit, but they can't have made staying especially attractive.The withdrawal continues a broader retreat from Africa. Uber also left Ivory Coast and Tanzania over the past year, leaving it operating in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.<snip>
The boys over there were robbing Uber blind... hailing themselves with countless burner phones to collect the bonuses and subsidies many times over... to be fair!
