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Gokada branches into delivery, boat services after okada ban

By Olumide Ologbosere
07 February 2020   |   3:45 am
For commuters in Nigeria’s commercial city, Lagos, these are trying times. Weeks ago, the Lagos State government announced a restriction on the operations of commercial motorcycles and tricycles in 15 local councils.

Gokada has announced plans to go into delivery and scale boat services. Announcing the company’s plans, the CEO, Fahim Saleh, said: “We are pivoting to deliveries while transport gets figured out. We were always going to do deliveries and had started to develop the tech for it, but this ban accelerated the process.”

Saleh told Tech Cabal that Gokada boat service will launch anytime in February, or “real soon. One 24-passenger boat just came in, and another is sitting at the port waiting to be cleared from customs.” This news comes after reports that the firm had laid off over 50 per cent of its staff just days after the ban.

The president of National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), Activist Sunday Asuku, has condemned the sudden ban of okada and Keke Marwa in Lagos.

The president in a statement said: “It is wicked, inhumane and barbaric to suddenly place a ban on bikes and Marwa without any reasonable and viable alternative at a time when insecurity, unemployment, online fraudsters, abduction, kidnapping and banditry are on the high side, forcefully retiring these hustlers from the streets without providing a viable alternative will further endanger the peace of the state.”

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