Best Ways to Buy a Car on Hire Purchase for Uber (e-Taxi) Business in Nigeria

The e-taxi business popularly called 'Uber' in Nigeria is one that many people have either engaged in or would like to be engaged in. For many people trying to get into the business, a big barrier to entry is to cost of purchasing cars. Renting cars and paying weekly returns to the car owner is an option but that is fraught with problems of mistrust that usually leads to arguments over payments to the car owner and who is to pay for maintenance. 

Having interacted with many drivers who are eager to work but cannot afford to buy cars outright, I did some research and present to you what I consider the best options for those trying to buy used cars on hire purchase for Uber and e-taxi business in general. 

Best Hire Purchase Options in Nigeria

1. Autocheck.Africa

This platform has a wide array of foreign used cars available with their vehicle inspection result detailed, right from the listings, you are told what is right about the car and what is wrong with it. You can go for inspection with your mechanic and also test drive the car at the Autocheck.Africa facility.

Getting finance for the car and being able to take possession takes the following 4 steps:

How to Get a Car on Hire Purchase from Autocheck.Africa

Step 1: Complete a short form and get personalised cars to choose from

Step 2: Select a car and review the terms of finance.

Step 3: Apply for a loan and receive personalized offers.

Step 4: Accept a loan offer and drive home your dream car.

Because you are getting a car that you reasonably understand its pros and cons, this is an attractive option that many drivers might consider with the bonus of being able to pay for the car in installments after getting financing to acquire it.

2. Betacar.ng 

This is another platform similar to the first. They are ready to provide financing to drivers who own a car or have a structured registered business. These are the steps required if you are interested:

How to Get a Car on Hire Purchase from Betacar.Ng

Step 1: Search available cars to select your preferred car.

Step 2: Use the simple car loan calculator on your selected car to check the upfront deposit required, the monthly repayment, and the period of payment.

Step 3: Click on "Apply for Loan" button and fill the pre-approval assessment form.

Step 4: You will get an approval or rejection email within 10 minutes.

Step 5: If approved, you will get an email listing the documents needed, so start preparing all your documents.

Step 6: Visit Betacar HQ office for inspection and test drive.

Step 7: Scan all required documents and submit as a reply to the email address ([email protected]).

Step 8: Betacar.ng team will review and let you know once your application package is completed ... And you are all set.

According to Betacar.ng, your car could be ready for pick-up in 1 week after submission of all required documents. 

3.  Pukena.ng

This is another platform ready to give cars to salary earners who register with it to get a car for Uber. They say they prefer Toyota Corolla.

How to Get a Car on Hire Purchase from Betacar.Ng

Step 1: Fill out our online application form in details

Step 2: Get pre-verified. Provide proof of income/ evidence of salary domiciliation.

Step 3: Start Payment of N150,000. The rest payments will be spread in 12 months period

Step 4: Pick the car you want from any of our approved dealer partners. Provide a proforma invoice for your car of choice.

Step 5: Sign and drive away!

Pukena.ng requires a down-payment of N150,000 to get started on its hire purchase scheme and you have 12 months to complete payment for the car.

4. Nairaland.com

Nairaland is Nigeria's largest online forum and you can find people doing just about any business you can think of there. There are drivers and car owners there trying to link to each other and you can register to express your interest in getting a car on hire purchase.

How to Get a Car on Hire Purchase on Nairaland.com

Step 1: Register an account

Step 2: Search for threads on buying cars on hire purchase like this one.

Step 3: Express your interest on the thread and give details of how you can be contacted. You can also contact owners to have a meeting with you where you can agree on  terms of hire purchase agreement and when to start.

This is more of one-on-one conversation and as such, you should take all security precautions like only meeting with people on a major road and verifying any office address before visiting to ensure that it is a legit location. Nairaland has good and bad people, it is up to you to screen and carefully scrutinize any offer that is made to you..

There you have it folks, if you are someone wanting to enter the Uber (e-taxi) model of business, you might want to contact me. I am a confirmed Uber recruiter and I can help you set-up your account in really quick time for free. 

Reach me via call or WhatsApp on 08085404500 and let us see how we can help you get started as soon as possible.

My Uber story and how you can start yours

If I say I have many ogas, it is not an exaggeration because I work with so many people and institutions. Some have been dropped over the years and some are still active. Our levels of engagement vary from director, consultant, partner, recruiter and so on.

I recognized over a decade ago that I am not the type of person you will give one job and try to control like an automaton. The oga that tried it about 13 years ago was dancing in his seat the day I told him I was leaving. Apparently, nobody had told him the things I had politely told him that night, no one else probably will.

I digress, this post is really about the e-taxi business. The last 10 years has seen us move from corporate coloured cabs to ride-sharing platforms. I partnered with Indriver as a recruiter in 2019 and it gave me so many insights into the business. Even after they stopped paying me for my services, I kept helping people to address the problems they were having getting on their platform -- for free. We are talking about taking about 10 calls plus multiple WhatsApp messages on some days. I did this for primarily 2 reasons:

1. To know the business to a point of being relevant in the industry.

2. As a form of personal social responsibility -- every person I help to get on the platform has dependants they can better-provide for with the job. If you can add value to others without detriment to yourself, do it.

Now, the thing about adding value to others is that it builds authority and authority attracts value to you. It happened that some representatives of Uber saw what I do and decided to contact me to do it for them. My response? "Why not gentlemen?".

So, in the last few weeks we did our onboarding and I am pleased to let you know that I am officially a recruiter for Uber.

Driver I helped register giving feedback on approval

My job is to identify interested and potential drivers to join the platform and help them start successfully. This is at my own time and pace within what is acceptable to Uber.

So, dear friends, if you or anyone have a car that qualifies and are ready for Uber, you can contact me. Call or WhatsApp 08085404500. I am ready to help you get started on your Uber journey.

Twitter's Loss is Koo's Gain, Indian App now in Top 5 Most Downloaded Chart for Nigeria

Twitter got banned in Nigeria last week and the ripples of that decision by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari are still being felt.

The Nigerian government announced the ban via a Twitter thread ironically via Twitter thread which read in part: "The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria".

One of the fallouts of this ban is the rapid adoption of a rival India-developed microblogging app called Koo.

The app promises to respect laws of any country it operates in and Nigerians are trooping to it as an alternative

to Twitter which reports say has entered talks with the Nigerian government on how to have its ban lifted.

Koo is now listed as the 5th most downloaded app on Google Play store in Nigeria from almost no where.

In a move that is likely to bolster Koo, the Nigerian government has opened an account on the app.

Co-founder and CEO of Koo, Aprameya Radhakrishna  wrote: “A very warm welcome to the official handle of the Government of Nigeria on @kooindia! Spreading wings beyond India now”.

It is not yet clear if this is the beginning of huge growth for Koo in Nigeria and beyond, only time will tell.