Nairobi APP WARS 1; Uber drivers in Kenya try to organize protests on Zello

The Bolt driver on my trip said I could write this story without mentioning his name. At first, I did not know exactly why, because I had been out of the capital for a while.

Turns out it is a dangerous thing to voice dissent among the cult of ride-hailing taxis in Nairobi. Following the fervor of protest and economic frustrations rising in Kenya, the drivers had declared a strike.

They sought to shut down Nairobi’s taxi services in demand for a reduction of commissions that go to the digital hailing applications including Uber, Bolt, Little Cab, Faras, Yego, etc.

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This had failed since it was impossible to act in unison. The digital taxi market is fragmented among many players making it hard to organize labour protests. The desperation of these drivers who are up to the neck in loan payments means some have no choice but to be on the road.

This economic choice was however seen as a betrayal of the cause, skimming off the resultant surge. It turned ugly. According to news reports, the drivers turned on each other ripping apart car tyres and vandalizing those who refused to go on strike.

the Gen-Z app in fight against Goliath tech

But even in this disorganized frenzy, as they acted in concert, they found a way to organize better, through a digital radio application called Zello . During the recent political protests in Kenya, Gen Z’s adopted the use of Zello, a Walkie-Talkie application to coordinate movements against the police.

The Gen Z who reportedly showed up in Uber taxis must have taught their counterparts a new way to organize. One which they believe they can use against the giant techs and actually win.

One of them told me, that with the help of the app, one could call for quick backup on a digital radio and would instantly attract support, turning up in numbers just like nduthis

They say they have been organizing on the app for yet another labour strike that was meant to start this week, but which failed to materialize. They had planned on shutting down all taxi-hailing applications except Little Cab and Yego, both local companies who they say, have agreed to their demands for lower commissions.

the Uber accountant

Nearly every driver in whose taxi I sat during the last week of August had the Zello radio app, and a little sticker on their windscreen declaring affiliation to the online taxi association, except the one who picked me up in Umoja. At first, he looked typical since I had not yet learned of the taxi mutiny and what to look out for.

He had called me to ask if I had made the hailing request for someone else. I was a little bit confused until I entered the cab and discovered, like all Uber/bolt/faras/little drivers he had to juggle between apps for the most profitable trips and tended to confuse clientele. 

He was on another call. And I took time to see Nairobi in its resilience. The small traders lined on the side of the roads with the latest fashions and home tools amid the urgency of walking racers. 

He was laughing when he ended the call and felt compelled to let me in. He had responded to caller who had offered him Kes1500, which was almost four times more than my Kes400.

He explained that the caller was from somewhere in Kitengela which according to the application, should be a very lucrative route. However on the ground, he said, you had to go for several miles on a rough road, a treacherous journey that would leave your car dirty.

I quickly noticed the cleanliness he was talking about. He looked my elder brother's age, so he was fairly in his forties, with a clean fade-cut hairstyle, well-groomed with short nails.

His car had no dust, the dashboard was spotless and the doormat looked like it had just come out of a wash. The air inside was clean without an air freshener.

“This client was telling me to go to Kitengela, but when I told her I knew where she was calling the Uber from, she just started laughing, because she also knew. She thought I did not know and that I could go to Kitengela, kumbe it is far away in the interior.

If I were to go there, I would only charge Kes2000, mwisho, last price Kes1900, so that when I leave I have money to wash my car,” he said. The cleanliness again.

Kes10,000 penalty

He said there were two things that he did not compromise, that was fuel and cleanliness. His car, was old, 2012 model according to him, but he had kept it quite new and neat by being clean. And you would never get him stranded because of fuel.

The previous evening, I had witnessed this phenomenon on Thika Road. I saw this car stranded in the middle of the road because they had run out of fuel. It was unmistakably a taxi-hailing cab, from its run-down paint job to its smallness, and the lanky hooded driver, who anxiously worked on his phone for salvation.

I learned that this was common and what would happen was that the rescue car would come in and tow them to the next petrol station and charge them Kes10,000 which sounded illegal to me. I asked him if this was true.

“They take your car to the petrol station and ask them to fill your tank, then they give you the key and leave, they do not even talk to you,” he said.

How to Uber right

Namewithheld told me he worked as an accountant at Equity Bank until he quit in 2019. He claims he made the choice for freedom.

He said he always introduces himself as a taxi driver, but with a difference. "I make Kes5000 a day net of expenses which comes to about Kes150000. This is the same amount I made at Equity Bank but now without the pressure and on my own terms," he said.

I had been unemployed myself but had not figured out life, as this man had with all his assurances. He made me think of Immortal Technique's line, ‘You are working, am unemployed and we are making the same Sh*t.

I was brought back to his story with his sudden breaking. He was not such a clean driver, or he loved the exhilaration of chancing at almost accidents of Nairobi traffic. Or maybe I had lost the stomach for it, the one thing I do not miss about Nairobi is the anxious driving.  

He told me that he had cracked the code of taxi driving. He worked a twelve hour shift from 2 pm to 2 am and took a break from 6 Pm to seven in the evening. This ensured that he avoided the legendary traffic and its implication on costs.

He also strived to make his services exemplary, and keep a clean car and clients happy which has proven successful in getting him to return clients, who can be lucrative.

Encouraged by my ‘aha’ and mhms’ he told me of a story of how he met an Ivorian just the previous week from the airport. He says the way he carried himself on that trip made the Ivorian call him for privatized chauffeur services.

“He called me and asked me how much it would cost to get a big V8 and I told him, he then sent me money to hire a car for three days, and he paid me Kes80,000. That is just one job,” he said.

He smelt doubt in my ‘aha’ and mhms’ this time and he flashed his phone and showed me. He even went on to show me a Whatsapp chat with a previous client, currently out of the country who had requested if they could give his contact as a referral to friends who would be visiting Kenya this October.

Besides being a taxi driver he also does accounting on the side as a part-time job, which still earns him an income.

So he assured me that he had picked me because I made more economic sense based on his personal taxi-hailing cheat code. He said unlike his colleagues he would never ask for customers to pay more...

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