The management of LagosRide, a ride-hailing service, has refuted claims of a drivers’ union that the vehicles are only accessible to influential individuals and not willing members of the public.
LagosRide, also known as LagRide is a joint venture between Ibile Holdings, an investment arm of the Lagos State Government, and Zenolynk Technologies, an entity that manages the operation of the empowerment scheme. It was launched in March 2022.
Founder and CEO of Zenolynk Technologies Ltd, Tumi Adeyemi, said the process of applying and benefiting from the LagosRide scheme for drivers has been transparent and accessible to members of the public via social media, their website and office.
“At no point has anyone in government or cabal influenced our operation as being speculated,” Adeyemi told The Guardian. “Lagride is a public empowerment scheme for interested individuals to apply, fulfill the conditions and get the vehicles.
“Government interference in this is almost zero apart from the supervisory role.”
A union called Professional E-hailing Driver and Private-owner Association of Nigeria (PEDPAN) last week alleged that over 1,000 cars acquired for the purpose of the Lagride modern transportation system initiative were not being used for the purpose.
PEDPAN alleged that its members could not access the vehicles due to unreasonable and hostile conditions but Adeyemi said their claim was far from the truth.
“Out of willingness to have them on board, Ibile Holdings approached a bank and provided a loan arrangement with an equity guarantee required for commencement,” Adeyemi said.
He noted that they met again and requested the union to provide an ethics document to be agreed upon by both parties. Adeyemi said the union requested to impose a mandatory payment of 1% from drivers’ earnings to their union in their agreement which LagosRide turned down.
“We told them that our objective is to provide empowerment for Lagosian and not to enrich a union. So, they walked out of the session and that was how our relationship fell apart,” Adeyemi said.
“The empowerment programme was for qualified people to benefit from as individuals and not as a union for the sake of accountability and transparency.
“We were communicating with everybody that had access to us, these people received email, text messages from us. We are not writing to a union because this business model was not designed around a union, it is for the generality of the public.” (Guardian)