CLARIFICATIONS REGARDING SEVERAL QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS RAISED ON MYKAB, ACTIVE RIDES AND PEDPA.

The Professional E-hailing Drivers and
Private Owners Association (PEDPA),
Lagos State,
Nigeria.

To The Entire E-hailing
Drivers Community,
Lagos State.

Dear Comrades,

RE: CLARIFICATIONS REGARDING SEVERAL QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS RAISED ON MYKAB, ACTIVE RIDES AND PEDPA.

We bring to you greetings at this time believing that we are doing great.

As a matter of concern, we have received various agitations and questions resulting from PEDPA’s support for a new Indigenous App Company called ACTIVE RIDES. Even though this was not on the spot decision, the conversation came as a fallout of the last strike action and the various demands by drivers in the community on the need to get an App that will support the drivers demands.

Prior the Press release that took place some weeks back the community of drivers was also carried along on this conversation to properly evaluate App companies and choose the one that will speak the language of the drivers and work with the template.

As the Union  for the E-hailing drivers community,  PEDPA was setup to protect the image, fame and integrity of E-hailing Drivers. We are championing the fight for liberty for all drivers and protecting their dignity of Labour by liasing with App companies,  Government and other relevant agencies.

This legacy has made it possible for PEPDA to affiliate with TUC, Recognized by OTUWA, ITUC, ILO Solidarity CENTER and all levels of Government from the Local, State, to the  Federal level.*

PEPDA TEMPLATE FOR ALL APP COMPANIES!

1. Unilaterally Blocking off Drivers account. We are saying that henceforth, drivers must be given a fair hearing and must be able to get a Union representative for him or her when the need arises.

2. Majority of the drivers must give their consent through the Union before any policy will be implemented by the App Companies.

3. Drivers must have contractual obligations to control the prices of their business/services.

4 i. Since it has been proven that 5% can take care of the Application running and the maintenance,  all commission must be returned/reduced to 15%.

ii. Out of the 15% charged by the App companies, 5% must be kept for drivers welfare like HMO, LOANS, PENSIONS AND REAL ESTATE PLAN.

5.There must be proper and adequate profiling of riders, more attention to names and picture.

With the Template above, we are sure that drivers interest and welfare can be adequately taking care of.

As you may have already known, several attempts to get the App Companies look into this proposal and consider factoring it into their business module has failed as they told us that our demands cannot be granted.

To push for change, many drivers in the community have been agitating for strike action. You will recall that we have staged 2 strike actions, the last of which was on the 18th of April, 2021. Although that last strike forced them to make some little changes.

It was then obvious that we needed to think outside the box. Since what we need is the working tool which is an application, PEDPA started consultation with different local consultants until we eventually found one that was willing to work with our template. But then, they gave us a very challenging condition.

The condition given to us then was that the Union must also make a COMMITMENT to prove to them that Pedpa is serious.

The condition includes:

▪️Signing up of drivers by ourselves.

▪️Making financial commitments.

All of this was what brought about the idea of members paying 10k to become a Pioneer Member of PEDPA. It will interest you to know that this invitation was also given to some group Admins who has never even attended our meetings for once. But they abused it going around on the platforms to blackmail PEDPA of extorting the already suffering drivers.
It was as a result of this development that many became privy to the arrangements with mykab as a Pioneer members. But it is rather unfortunate that some paid that money and went home to sleep waiting for returns forgetting that part of the agreement was also to onboard drivers which means going to the street to sign up drivers. This exercise was very rigorous and with all sincerity mykab never funded that movement. Instead we were tasking ourselves to even eat while engaging in the exercise and the President kept spending his personal money to ensure nobody complains.

WHAT HAPPENS TO MYKAB THEN?

Following that aggressive campaign and even media publicity courtesy of PEDPA,  we were able to fulfil our own side of the agreement by bringing well over Five thousand drivers to signup on mykab in less than three months. We even went as far as encouraging drivers to introduce Mykab to their various riders. It will interest you to know that Pedpa even on their own volition to speed up the whole process raised money and paid for animations to advertise mykab in our own little way.

All of this was achieved despite various attacks, opposition and propaganda flying round on the platforms.

Having fulfilled our own side of the deal, we were now expecting Mykab to do massive Publicity and promotions as agreed.

However for reasons best known to Mykab management, they failed to compliment all our efforts .Their end was to  marketing the App and carry out massive advertising which was never done. This was so disheartening especially as many drivers in the community were already anxiously waiting for the adverts to compliment their one on one discussion with their Riders.

But our understanding with Mykab remains intact and we are always available to synergize with them anytime as a Union. And we are hoping that they come back on stage and perform well since they are already willing to work with the Union Templates.

WE ARE ALSO USING THIS MEANS TO APPRECIATE ALL THE DRIVERS WHO SIGNED UP ON MYKAB AND PATIENTLY WAITED, HOPED AND BELIEVED IN THE CAMPAIGN.

We deeply appreciate you all for believing in the movement.

Obviously Mykab is currently not living up to all our expectations. And as a Union,  we fight technically and while doing that, we always think of how best to protect the drivers community.

One of our laid down strategy was to switch to Mykab during the strike, so that drivers have something to take home on a daily basis despite the strike against the unfavorable App coys. But disappointingly,  Mykab was not available to fill the space during our strike action.

With the Union leadership kept in PANTI for 3 days, the members accounts were blocked and some cars were retrieved by owners all because we have to switch to plan B and unfortunately Mykab wasn’t there to fill that space. This caused the Union so much heartache but we have to move on.

As a Union we do not encourage monopoly! So even if Mykab had played it’s part, we will still have given room for as many App Companies as possible that are ready to synergize with drivers.

To that end, we agreed in our NEC and CWC Meeting of PEDPA that there is need to start a fresh search and evaluation of other App companies that are ready to adopt the already designed proposal.

That search led to meeting with ACTIVE RIDES who were not only willing to accept the proposal but ready to do promotions for both drivers and riders accordingly.

We are glad to inform the entire E-hailing Drivers community that we have completed our agreement with ACTIVE RIDES and the aforementioned bullet points of our proposal has been adopted and implemented by ACTIVE RIDES.

Undoubtedly,  our aim is to ensure that all App companies use this same template and we are glad we’ve just broken a new ground by increasing the numbers of App Companies ready to synergize with us.

Today as we speak, we have MYKAB and ACTIVE RIDES on our synergy list and we are calling on all app companies out there (UBER and BOLT inclusive) to come and give drivers a voice by forming synergy with a United front of E-hailing drivers community  (PEDPA) because we will not stop until all App companies give drivers the right of workers as stipulated in the Labour laws.

Conclusively, we are aware that not all the Pioneers are happy to move on, especially as they feel their financial input to bring mykab to the lime light has not materialized. And that has led to the several voice notes making rounds to express their displeasure. But they must realize that the drivers interest as well as the aims and objectives, vision and mission of PEDPA as a Union supercede any personal interests any individual may have.

To that end, we herein encourage the entire drivers community to remain calm and focused as we together bring about the desired change that the industry deserves.

Remember we all MUST speak with  one United voice to say:

▪️NO to Indiscriminate account BLOCKING

▪️NO to Price tozzle/Slashing

▪️NO to humongous Commission by App Companies

▪️NO to Poor Riders Profiling

▪️NO to Unilateral Policy making without drivers/ Union Consultation.

As a gentle reminder, kindly visit the Play store or OIS store to download the ACTIVE RIDES  App. While they are working hard to deliver the best to the Community.

Thank you all.

✍️ COMRADE IDRIS OLUWASEUN SHONUGA

PEDPA NATIONAL PRESIDENT