Interview with Uche Okafor

Before 2016, the mobility sector in West Africa was undefined and complex. Although Bolt was not the first player in the region, the ride-hailing giant took over the mobility sector in a short while and redefined it with reliable and affordable service. From Taxify to Bolt, the service offering has only gotten better with innovative initiatives including Bolt Food.

In this chat with Uche Okafor, Regional Manager, Bolt West Africa, he narrates the leading e-hailing company’s achievements in 2021, and highlights expectations for 2022.

Introduce yourself and what you do at Bolt?

I am Uche Okafor, and I lead regional rides operations in Bolt West Africa, presently. I lead an amazing team of young Africans focused on transforming mobility in every city in West Africa. We are currently in 39 cities and are looking to expand to even more in the coming months.

How has the journey been so far, from your transition to Bolt from Taxify?

It has truly been an exhilarating experience. The Brand name change was a game changer as it expanded our horizon to deliver more innovative products across the mobility landscape, deepened consumer loyalty and triggered sustainable growth that kept the lights on and reduced business impact during the pandemic.

How is Bolt looking to create impact across the mobility sector in West Africa and what role does innovation play?

Innovation is at the very core of our mission to transform urban mobility; we are innovating every day in how we deliver value and interact with our customers. On our core ride-hailing product we have over the course of the last 2 years introduced a robust set of features that have tremendously improved the way people move and earn on the Bolt Platform.

Some of these features include the free in-app calls & chats and the insurance coverage on all rides, driver biometric verification for all new drivers, 24/7 support from our customer service and high priority teams, driver on-demand pay-outs, among others. We are still innovating, and over the next few months we would introduce more features

What is the potential market growth and expansion plans for Bolt in West Africa?

West Africa is a potential heavy bloc of 16 countries, and we know that increasing our footprint is the key to unlocking full potentially. So, while we have focused strongly on building and consolidating on our value proposition to customers within our existing markets of Nigeria & Ghana on the Anglophone end, we are currently exploring opportunities in francophone West Africa.

Bolt Food was recently launched in Nigeria. Tell us more about this.

Read also: Bolt raises $713m to accelerate transition to shared mobility in Africa, emerging markets

Food delivery has been very important to urban cities since the advent of the coronavirus. So, banking on the huge success of our ride-hailing business, we launched Food delivery in Nigeria starting from Lagos to solidify our overall product offering to our customers. Delivering a much-optimized food ecosystem where users are guaranteed faster delivery times and exposed to a wide variety of quality restaurants, couriers (drivers) would earn much more compared to any other platform. Also, restaurants would have a broader reach to thousands of customers.

Safety is at the core of any ride-hailing business. What are some of the safety measures Bolt has across West Africa?

Yes, we believe that safety is too important not to be everybody’s priority. Every day we strive to improve our safety proposition and over the last few months we have consistently introduced new safety features within the existing safety toolkit.

Our toolkit currently includes the ride-hailing insurance covering personal injury on every ride, the share your ride feature, VOIP, and S.O.S Button. Over the next few months, we would leverage our technology to unlock more innovative features.

What are Bolt’s plans for eco-friendly transportation in the region? Do you foresee the introduction of electric vehicles (EV) soon, and do you think the region is ready?

We are excited about the looming EV revolution, and we recognise our pivotal position to lead adoption within the sub-region. Today over 60% of light-duty vehicles imported from Europe, Japan and America are over aged. So, an innovative EV agenda would impact emissions; improved air quality; lower energy costs within the region. However, infrastructural & regulatory gaps constitute the biggest challenge to setting up an EV grid infrastructure. Governments in West Africa need to do more and as a company, we are ever ready to drive partnerships and assist in utilizing our platform to drive adoption.

Is the recently unveiled Bolt Driver’s League part of plans to increase earning potentials for drivers in West Africa?

As a platform focused on ensuring that drivers on the platform earn the highest anywhere, we have continuously unlocked value-added partnerships designed to save cost to drivers and make an impact on overall net earnings over time. The Bolt Driver League is one of such partnerships. Here, high performing drivers qualify for various high value gifts on a weekly basis with a grand prize of 4 new cars given to winners from different categories. We have been consistent in empowering drivers and increasing their earning potential. This initiative empowers four drivers to become car owners, saving previous leasing cost that accounts for more than 30% of their gross weekly revenue thereby significantly improving their earnings.

You are currently in 33 cities in Nigeria alone. What is the growth prospect to cover more cities across Africa in the next 5 years?

Well, the number has changed. We were live in 33 cities in August but as 1st Dec 2021, we are now operational in 39 cities. Our most recent city was Sunyani in Ghana. The team is executing at the speed of light and deserve all the kudos they get as they are the real-life superheroes. So, with this team, unlocking even more cities and launching innovative business verticals is a given. Watch out!