Nigerian Ride-Hailing Union Demands Protection for App-Based Drivers

On the 1st of May 2025, the Amalgamated Union of App-Based Transportation of Nigeria (AUATON) submitted a petition to the National Assembly accusing global ride hailing companies (Uber, Bolt and InDrive) of perpetuating corporate violence, alleging systematic worker misclassification and repeated acts of negligence leading to violent crimes against drivers.

In the 14 page petition addressed to the Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions, AUATON called on the Federal legislature to protect the rights and lives of thousands of app based transport workers across Nigeria. The organisation’s President (Damola Adeniran) wrote; “… it is a human rights crisis … drivers continue to suffer brutal attacks, and these companies hide behind vague terms and technology to evade responsibility.”

According to the petition, these ride-hailing platforms evade accountability for the safety and welfare of drivers by misclassifying them, designating them as “self-employed contractors” which allows the platforms to avoid granting them essential benefits such as health insurance, fair compensation, social protection, and the right to collective bargaining. AUATON’s President went on to cite several harrowing accounts involving violent attacks on drivers.

To support their demands, the petition also cites several international and national legal frameworks, including section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which guarantees freedom of association and the right to form unions, section 91 of the Labour Act which defines employment relationships and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions.  

With their petition, AUATON calls on the National Assembly to convene a restorative national policy conference this July with full stakeholder representation, an effort to compel ride-hailing platforms to participate in a show of good faith, legislate a new national framework to classify platform workers as employees entitled to protection under Nigerian labour law, address the use of automated systems for driver deactivation and uphold the constitutional rights of app-based workers to unionize, protest and bargain collectively. 

This petition comes on the heels of a 24-hour nationwide strike organized by the Union, which took place on Worker’s Day (the 1st of May). 

The strike was declared in a statement signed by AUATON Public Relations Officer (Steven Iwindoye) on the 29th of April, declaring that their members would be staying off the apps, refusing to work and demanding that their rights be respected. The Union would be protesting alleged poor wages, unjust deactivation of driver profiles, unsafe working conditions, excessive commissions taken by the companies and exploitative work policies. 

According to Iwindoye, “We [the Union] have tried dialogue, it has not worked; these companies only understand one language: the language of economic pressure.” 

It must be noted however, that on the day of the planned strike, several drivers in Lagos simply continued working and while this might be due to the low publicity of the strike, it also speaks to the ineffectiveness of ‘economic pressure’ in a country where protests are largely repressed by the government and the primary concern of the masses is securing their daily bread.