 Welcome back. Uber and both drivers in Nigeria want the pricing to be reviewed because the prices are no longer reflective of the cost they put in. They also want both companies to reduce the commission charged on rides from 25% to 10%. I am now being joined by the general secretary, our magamated union of up-based transport workers of Nigeria, Ayuradeh Ibrahim, to discuss further. Ayuradeh thanks for joining me, Ayur. Alright, Ayur, can you hear me? Okay, Ayur, you might need to unmute your device so we can actually hear you proper. But I just want to find out what's the situation. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can hear you loud and clear. Good morning. Yeah, good morning to you, Ayuradeh. Can you bring me up to speed as regards what's happening? I hear since yesterday your union members have been on strike. Tell me more. Yes, we are on strike because of the arc in petroleum that is a major material that we use in the industry. And we ask the companies to increase the price to 200% and cut down their commission to 10%. But since yesterday they have tried to blackmail us that we want to make our customer to pay more. But that is not the correct argument here. And for the benefit of our customers, I just want to educate us about the pride mechanism in the giga economic companies. We have three factors that give our companies income into the industry. The commission is just part of it. If you could connect, many of us use Twitter, we use Facebook, and they never act us any money to pay for suspicion or what have you. And the same thing in our platform, in Lagos state alone we move more than 1.5 million rider a day. And that is to say we pull in the crowd into their website and then we use our data. And we have this one that we are doing, they make money from it through the advertisements and what a few. And if you look at it very well, even to collect the 10% is not out of order for them to do. So these are the issues that we are trying to tell them that there is no excuse for them because every organization have the way of doing the kind of a palliative measure to make their worker benefit for this. And they have been blackmailing us sincerely, in fact most of the new driver that want to join the platform, they both put it to their condition immediately that they should denounce the union before they can accept them to work in their platform, which is against Nigeria law, so freedom of association. So these are the issues. Okay, before now, this is not the first time that there's been an impasse between your union and of course Uba and Boat over time. You have had issues concerning this talk of commission and reduction and all of that. So far, when was the last time you engaged with them before this fuel hike and what have been the responses like over time? Yeah, we have engaged them several times, but the leverage and divided rules of our industry tango to the Ministry of Labor and the federal government of Nigeria that they approve our union January this year. So this one make us to be one accord. So we have been writing a lot of letters to them to let us have a rentable, instead of them to invite us to have a rentable, direct a petition to the Ministry of Labor not to accept our union or not to give us the union. So these are the area they are trying to do something that is against Nigeria constitution. And this time around, what's changed about our strategy this time around to the previous one you are talking about? First thing we did, we wrote a letter to all the logistics, all the partners and what a few that give a car to our member put HP and the renter HP means the higher process to forgive them through this time of strike so that they cannot be able to meet up with the other condition they have. That is first method we use and the second method we use is that all in a driver in Nigeria, you can verify in Kalaba, you can verify in Kano, you can verify everywhere. All of us are anonymously go on strike this time around. This is what makes a difference. I think their heat is getting higher today. Speaking of heat getting higher because I tried to find out just how far your members are going with compliance and I tried one or two of the apps and I found that we could still actually get rides maybe on the island. I don't know other parts of Lagos because people are still using the app. So are you sure the strike is actually effective? However, have you been able to ensure compliance because our members have been picking up riders? Yeah, thank you so much. You are very familiar to our industry. It's a technology driven system that anybody can pick his car today and begin to drive. Most of the people you see or you saw on the road, they are new driver. They just registered with our company. You know, our company takes driver every minute, every second. So you can just see all those nobis on the road because we think it is something that make them to have money. But you won't. For example, we have a friend of 15,000 and the use is to make 18,000. And then of the day, you cannot have any cobble in your pocket to your family. It's only you are working for their company for their permission. So nobody will tell anybody when you hit the road and you see that at the ending of the day, you won't make any money for your family. You just work for the company's permission and what have you. So it's very big learning. I just walk me through how it works before this fuel increase. Ordinarily, if you were to, how much do you expend on fuel? And how much do you get in total rights at the end of the day? And how much do you pay as commission to Uber and maybe in-driver boat and the rest of them? Yeah, thank you for that question. For example, let pick an airport to let if it's one that at least everybody will know the distance. We are talking about 3,000 to 2,005. That is normally the normally charged in a normal time that's no such. And before you can make that trip, the several things we involved. The number one is your car. You have to follow your car and wear and tear. You have to remove money. You have to pay yourself. You have to eat. You have to move the data that you use. And all those things together is what we call operation cost. And from operation cost of 2,005 or 3,000 ERA, you have already removed something like 3,000 ERA out of it. Out of 3,000 ERA, you take from airport to let if it's one. So remain 2,500 ERA with you. Remove 25% to 30% commission. So we are talking about 1,200 or 1,300 in your pocket. Out of that 1,200 in your pocket, remove the fuel. Lucky for you, if you have a no drop in a Tom Miller bridge, that means you will spend up to 7 or 8 liters to get to that level. I don't know the day when you remove plus and minus, you will not get up to 2,000 ERA in your pocket. So these are the parts. And that is the truth about it. And the one I said now is not when the fuel was high. It's when everything was normal. But now, when the fuel was high, the fuel of 10,000 ERA for you in your tank is now jump up to 25,000 to 30,000 ERA. And they just increase the price with 100 ERA. You can imagine somebody that carried a customer from airport to let if it's one at the rate of 4,500 ERA. And you buy the fuel of 5,400 ERA per liter. And they use about 10 to 8,800 ERA to get you to that particular base. When you do minus or plus, you will see at the end of the day, you will not get anything from your pocket. Let me start a good example. Yesterday, the boys started a strike about a fuel of 15,000 ERA to my car. And when I walk at the end of the day, I got 18,850 ERA, less than 18,000. At the end of the day, the commission, and if I remove the fuel of 10,000 or 15,000 ERA, remain about 3,000. And the company take about 4,500. And the remaining money from me is around 2,000 ERA. On my way to home, I have to buy something to eat since the time I'm working. So at the end of the day, half 1,500 ERA in my pocket. And they have pocketed 4,000 ERA as their own commission. OK, so I understand all of that now. But in the wake of all of this now, Nigerians, everyone is actually groaning under the pressure of the fuel subsidy removal. OK, your union is asking for 200% increment. That's, for instance, either I took a ride from maybe the mainland to the island at about in 3,500. Right now, it would be almost not even 7,000. It might be over 10,000 ERA. Have you factored in if it would not reduce maybe patronage on your parts from people who actually would want to seek other alternative? Thank you so much. When we say 200 increment, it does not go to the customer directly. That is what people do not understand about all this calculation in our industry. When we say 200% increment, if they remove their commission, they bring it down like 10%. That one I've already taken care of 70% to 80% of how much the rider or the customer will be paid. And that is what they are running away for. If they bring down the commission, automatically the money that the customer will pay will reduce, and the money that will come to the driver will increase. So these are the things that people will not understand. So if they bring down the commission, that money will come down, and you pay less, and the driver will get higher. These are the technicality around the fizzing of the price on us. And I want you to know something concerned to all these price mechanisms that have accompanied it. You see, there's one they call a booking fees, and that is one they remove for the legal state, for the rule development, which is 20 error. And all these things are better together with the work that the driver have. About the money, we are increasing money, we are talking about all these charges we still remove from there. So at the end of the day, it's not that total amount of money you are thinking that is coming to us, that we come to us. That is the truth about all these things. They know how to do it, and maybe this is the time we begin to educate the customer about how does our company charge and remove all these charges. That 20,000 or 50,000 error I am talking about is not supposed to come to the customer directly if the fizzing or the mechanism we put in place to them. All right. So just before we go now, I need to understand them. For how long do you intend to continue with this strike and what dispute resolution have you put in place or are in place so far since yesterday? Yeah, we have wrote them. Actually, the first district we end in a week. By Friday, we do the measurement of how we value how effective the strike is. And we ask them to have a collective bargaining to us and recognize our union so that it can be in the table and fasten out how the rider, the company, the driver and we make money on this. We are open for discussions. They are just running away because they are doing, you know, the business is supposed to be open for everyone of us to contribute. You just want to have input in the price mechanism they are putting in place because most of the price mechanism they put in place is a very, very wrong because they are not the real driver that is on the road. We can calculate everything for them and they will look at it and their commission will be there and the make money, we make money, the customer pay less. That is what we are saying. All right, thank you so much. I have been speaking with your dear Ibrahim, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of an app-based workers over the one week strike and that has been called upon since yesterday. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us on today's show. Thank you so much. All right, sir. Thank you so much. That's the size of the show for today. I am Justin Akadonye, business insider. We'll return to your screen again, same time tomorrow. Bye for now.