The Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, has stated categorically that the agency has nothing to do with Uber’s decision to exit the country.
Her reaction is coming on the heels of insinuations in some quarters that the decision by FAAN to introduce regulatory measures on the operations of e- hailing companies following several complaints by passengers led to Uber’s exit from Nigeria
She pointed out that it is not true as Uber has been considering leaving Nigeria long time ago.
She said this during an interview at the sidelines of the Nigerian Aviation Hall Of Fame (NAHF), Second Induction Ceremony and Unveiling of Montage of Honours, held in Lagos, today.
“I am sure that they had their own reasoning, and I know that they had been considering exiting Nigeria for a while, which is indeed why we had a stumbling point with them. So it’s not—it has nothing to do with FAAN. Again, the airport is just a small jurisdiction of the area that they cover within Nigeria,” Kuku said.
The FAAN boss said that she cannot speak on Uber’s exit from Nigeria, adding that she is very sure they have their own economic and regulatory decisions as to why they choose to exit.
Speaking further, Kuku said that in recent weeks, she has seen a lot of information in the media, but that what is important to clarify the issues
“I work for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, and my responsibility, first, is to ensure that our passengers are safe, they’re protected, and they have a seamless passenger experience.”
“But a couple of things are very clear. What was important for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria is to ensure that we addressed passenger concerns. We did receive a lot of concerns, especially around the December holiday period, about passengers who took some of the e-hailing so I don’t want to mention one or the other but used some of the e-hailing services, and even the car hire services, who had very terrible experiences,” she said
She pointed out that some of the passengers apart from being intimidated , were also being dropped in other places, and even more extreme situations.
According to her , “We did have situations where some of the Uber and Bolt drivers would get down from their cars under the guise of coming into the airport as e-hailing drivers, and they would join the car hires to charge higher fares. Based on this, it was important—because everybody was complaining about the touting at the airport—that we provided even some sort of regulatory oversight on the car hires._
She said that the App that was developed was strictly to focus on the fact that there is visibility on who the car hire companies are and who the driver that is taking you from Point A to Point B is.
Kuku clarified that FAAN does not collect money on behalf of the drivers and that those car hire drivers are not FAAN drivers.
“All we do is to give you a sample of the rates based on the destination that you’re going to,” Kuku said.
The FAAN boss noted that car hires by nature have always charged a higher fare, because their reason is that they’re only going from one point to the airport and returning to the airport, adding that it is the choice of the passenger whether to pre-work, use the e-hailing app or use the car hires.
“We have no jurisdiction over that. The only thing that I have a responsibility to do is to ensure that you have visibility over who is driving you and those within our airport.One of the things that we were struggling with the e-hailing companies was largely around liability clauses. So they wanted us to give them dedicated pickup zones, which we agreed to, but we also wanted them to take responsibilities for the drivers. But we were told that those drivers are not the drivers of Uber, rather they’re independent drivers. So any safety concerns that we had, they wanted the passengers to use the safety features; they did not want to take up that responsibility, and we had a major issue with that.
That’s all I’m going to say about that matter,” she said.
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