Easy Taxi calms Nigeria's kidnapping fears
By Tim Cocks
LAGOS (Reuters) - In Nigeria, one of the world's worst countries for
kidnapping, getting in the wrong cab could end up costing you or your
family a lot more than the agreed taxi fare.
Many people have a "taxi guy" whom they trust to avoid
this risk. But what if he's on the other side of a notoriously
traffic-throttled city like Lagos just when you need him?
It was a clear gap in the market for Easy Taxi, which like
Silicon Valley's Uber uses a smartphone app and GPS technology to
provide taxi services by linking up customers with a trusted driver who
is nearby.
In Nigeria, Easy Taxi only recruits
existing taxis, but ones that are carefully vetted with all their
documents in order. Many won't pass the test.
A spike in kidnapping of well-to-do Nigerians and
expatriates in Lagos in late 2012 and early 2013 made a lot of people
wary of flagging down unknown cabs. Nigerians dubbed them "one chance",
denoting the small but terrifying risk.
According to consultancy Control Risks, Nigeria ranked
third behind India and Mexico for recorded kidnaps-for-ransom in 2013,
though last year it had been pushed down to fifth place by Iraq and
Pakistan.
"People were being kidnapped in taxis, in
public buses, so there was a big fear for safety," Easy Taxi Nigeria's
Managing Director Bankole Cardoso told Reuters.Yet almost everyone with a trusted taxi guy has had the same experience. He'll be there in 20 minutes, he says, before setting off into what Nigerians call a go-slow, a traffic jam, crawling through lanes of hooting yellow buses and rickshaws.
He eventually shows up an hour later, after multiple calls
and estimated arrival time changes, to find a frustrated passenger.
