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By Citizen Agba Jalingo
From media records, between January and December 2021 alone, over 1000 bikes have been shared in the five LGAs of Cross River North, mostly by politicians and a few individuals who have also adopted Okada, as empowerment for the people. And more are still pouring in as we approach the 2023 general elections.
The cost of one bike through out the year 2021, has hovered between N350k to N420k, depending on the type you are buying. If we stick with N400k x 1000 bikes, that will amount to N400million Naira for purchase of those bikes alone.
Each bike rider delivers N1k daily to the bike owner but if you own one and ride it yourself, you could amass up to N3k daily for yourself. That’s a N400million+ hardware economy there.
Transport from the LGA headquarters to most of the villages takes average of N300. To amass N3k daily will mean each biker has to lift at least 10 passengers a day, on average. But, let us discount all the bikes distributed in previous years and assume that all the 1000+ bikes distributed in 2021 alone, are working on the road and lifting at least 10 passengers each, daily at N300.
That will amount to lifting a total of 10,000 passengers daily amassing N3million. This does not include all the other bikes distributed previously, for over 15 years now. So, let us do some elementary, data driven opportunity analysis.
The five LGAs of Northern Cross River Senatorial district have a combined land area of 4,527km², and a combined population of 1,015,300 people as at 2016, estimated to be nearing 1.5million people by 2020.
By our population, Cross River North alone is larger than Cyprus, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Bahamas, Dominican Republic and several other countries with less than a million population.
By our land area, our senatorial district is also bigger than Hong Kong, Singapore, Malta, Mauritius and several other nations under 4000km².
Most of these smaller countries have thriving and bustling economies that are catering for their people, with Singapore and Hong Kong, far ahead of Nigeria.
With a hypothetical N400million hardware investment, 1000 bikes, 10,000 daily passengers and N3million daily revenue, it is a waste of resources I repeat, not to take deliberate steps to digitalize the relationship between these forces, with a view to creating a digital retail economy that will target these itinerant players and enable them create and distribute wealth among themselves.
How to do this will form part two of this article tomorrow.
Merry Christmas and God bless you.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.
Continued in Part Two
