Abuja, Nigeria – Uber is leaving Nigeria and Uganda just as the cost of running a ride-hailing business is becoming harder to sustain in parts of Africa. The company ended its 12-year run in Nigeria and about a decade in Uganda on September 2 , saying the decision followed a “thorough review” of its business priorities and was limited to those countries. reported that Uber did not provide specific reasons for the Nigeria exit. But the latest pullouts follow a series of exits from African markets.
After six years in Ivory Coast, Uber left last year and ended its Tanzania service in January this year after nearly a decade there. The closures do not point to a simple lack of demand. Instead, they highlight a harder calculation: whether platforms can keep fares affordable for passengers, whether drivers can earn enough to stay on the road and whether commissions are high enough to make the business worthwhile?
President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, including the removal of the fuel subsidy and changes to the naira’s exchange-rate regime, have reshaped the cost of doing business in Nigeria. For ride-hailing drivers, petrol, imported spare parts and vehicle maintenance have become more expensive, squeezing incomes at a time when fares remain under pressure. The frustration came to a head in March, when drivers working for Uber, rivals Bolt and inDrive staged a three-day strike in Lagos and Ogun over what they described as unsustainable fares and poor working conditions.
Uber driver Farouk Adebayo, who joined the strike in Lagos, told Al Jazeera how the economics had changed. When I add the cost of maintaining my car and everything else, the profit I was making from driving with Uber was not worth it.” For drivers, the problem was not simply what Uber charged. It was the accumulation of costs on top of the platform’s commission.
Ayoade Ibrahim, co-founder and general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of App-Based Transporters of Nigeria (AUATON), said drivers were being squeezed from several directions. The platform takes 25–30 percent commission. Then the occasional fine.
What remains is barely enough to feed a family, let alone save for the next repair. That is why so many drivers told us, as a union, that they had already migrated to Bolt and inDrive, or gone offline to negotiate cash trips simply to survive,” Ibrahim said. That shift matters because Uber is competing not only for passengers, but also for drivers who can move between platforms.
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