As a way of curbing insecurity, especially the ‚one-chance‘ robbery menace in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), an Abuja-based Information Technology (IT) firm, Sure Group, has introduced an application to register and verify taxi drivers.
The company disclosed this at a sensitisation programme for cab drivers organised at the Area 1 Motor Park in Abuja yesterday.
On the essence and various features of the App, general manager and legal adviser of the group, Mrs Nadia Oka, said, “We are in consultation with the government and also in conjunction with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and SMEDAN, and eventually we will be able to capture the drivers nationwide including the inter-state transport, as the government now has a database of truck drivers who drive public transport in Nigeria.
“With that, they can have access to soft loans as we intend to partner with a company in China that produces electric vehicles. With this, drivers can have access to these loans to purchase their electric vehicles. We are also partnering with a firm in London.”
She also said that the technology is going to help in curbing the risk of ‚one-chance‘ in Abuja and nationwide adding that Abuja is the first place, and for the first phase, they are targeting to capture about 100,000 drivers or more. “After Abuja, we are going to Lagos and then to other parts of the country. We all know the menace of ‚one-chance‘ and how people are so scared of boarding public transport.”
She further said that with the new app, drivers will get a digital ID and then in each vehicle, a QR code will be placed. When a passenger boards a cab, the first thing to do is to scan the QR code. If the driver‘s details don’t come up, the driver is not registered. Whoever boards such a car, does that at his peril.
“It is for safety, to secure people’s lives and give them back their confidence about entering public transport. That is the first piece of what we intend to do,“ she added.
When asked about the possible challenges that might militate against the innovative idea, Nadia said,
“Majority of the drivers that we have seen own Android phones but we will eventually introduce USSD codes and SMS” for those without Internet-enabled phones.
Reacting to the development, one of the target beneficiaries and a driver, Muhammed Abdullahi, commended the effort of the organisation. He said it was a welcome development because the initiative would help to secure the lives of people and make it easy for taxi drivers to get easy access to loans.
Abdullahi said, “In this park if you do not have a driving licence, we won‘t even admit you because it is against the law.”
