Not many are aware that OPay had suspended its OBus feature. The intra-city bus service of the emerging super app keeps facing problems that threaten its viability.

 

The service is only about three months old in Lagos but has at the same time, faced immense difficulties competing with the city’s yellow buses known as Danfo. Also, it faced the notoriously implacable area boys and Transport Union.

 

On another hand, It may also have something to do with its penchant to give huge discounts, a business model that is seen as very unconventional; as OPay’s quiet revision of transfer charges also raises concerns as regards its aggressive growth strategy since its Nigerian launch.

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Signs Agreement With NURTW

“If you can’t beat them you join them”. This is perhaps the reasoning behind which OPay quickly signed an MOU with the Union. Its other forays into the transport space, ORide, already reportedly faces regular intimidation from members of the union.

 

The bid to restore the service is perhaps the rationale behind the hand of friendship extended to the transport union. This also makes a lot of sense as the union has a monopoly of activities in the road transport sector.

 

This perhaps will also placate the ‘boys’ and give OPay a head start over its rivals even giving ORide a breather.

 

Tweeting from microblogging site, Twitter, on Thursday, the National Union Of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) newly appointed leader in Lagos, Alh, Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as [“MC OLUOMO” ] revealed an agreement with OPay and SONLINK.

 

MC Oluomo revealed via his social media page:

 

“FLEXIBLE CO-OPERATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN NURTW LAGOS STATE COUNCIL UNDER THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF ALHAJI MUSILI AYINDE AKINSANYA MC OLOUMO, SON LINKS MOTORCYCLE AND OPAY MANAGEMENT..”

 

This is happening barely a month after the introduction of the tricycle hailing option in its ecosystem, OTrike in Aba and Kano.

 

OPay is perhaps proving to its investors how its recent $120 million investor injection can help in its expansion.

 

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