Nigeria’s women drivers rally together to navigate male-dominated industry

It was after 11pm on a night last February when Victoria Oyeyemi received an urgent phone call as she was getting ready for bed.

A fellow taxi driver, Gladys April Abanang, had been in a serious accident. Her car lost control, climbed a curb and somersaulted while she was working in the Oshodi area of Lagos.

After a crowd of passersby and neighbourhood thugs who saw the accident helped remove her from the vehicle, the first thing a slightly injured and bleeding Abanang did was phone Oyeyemi, the chief security officer (CSO) for Ladies on Wheel Association of Nigeria, or LOWAN.

“I was on the floor but somehow I was able to get my phone and put a call across to LOWAN CSO,” the 47-year-old mother of one told Al Jazeera.

Within 10 minutes, Oyeyemi was at the scene. In her volunteer role at the non-profit that supports women drivers, she mans a helpline for members needing emergency assistance.

While Abanang’s husband took her to the hospital, Oyeyemi stayed at the scene to settle things with the thugs who insisted on getting paid for their help. She also arranged a towing service for the car, which LOWAN paid for. And in the weeks that followed, the group regularly checked on Abanang and supported her until she was back on her feet.

“They took care of me, they kept encouraging me and they were so supportive … It was only LOWAN that came to my help,” Abanang said.

Six years ago when the association first started, there were six women in the group. Now there are some 5,000 members ranging in age from 25 to 60 – all of them female commercial drivers working across Nigeria. As their membership grows, so do the ways they support each other.

LOWAN is a close-knit group, says founder Nkechi Abiola, with members looking after each other, looking out for one another on the road, and even exchanging trade advice and secondary business opportunities.

They also facilitate loans to help the 60 percent of the group’s members who do not yet own their cars, and they assist one another through a regular savings scheme.

‘Fighting’ for acceptance

In recent years, there has been a surge in the number of women venturing into the commercial transport business in Nigeria – working as taxi, danfo bus, tricycle and motorcycle taxi drivers.

Experts say this increase is driven by Nigeria’s worsening economic situation which is forcing women to earn more money to support their families – ushering many into industries that have traditionally been more male dominated.

Seyi Awojulugbe, a senior analyst at Lagos-based geopolitical risk advisory firm, SBM Intelligence, told Al Jazeera that while more women being employed in Nigeria’s formal sector “is due to increased campaign for female participation”, in the informal sector, it’s because of “mainly economic reasons”.

“They need a constant flow of cash,” said Awojulugbe. “Some of them may be due to the loss of a breadwinner in the family, or job loss.”

However, Nigeria remains socioculturally patriarchal and the shift has not been easy for female drivers. Some passengers even go so far as rejecting a ride as soon as they see a woman behind the wheel, because of the false assumption that women are bad drivers, LOWAN members said.

“People, both female and male, don’t really like women driving them. Even the rate of acceptance for us as commercial drivers is low. We are still fighting for that,” Abiola told Al Jazeera.

Before she started LOWAN in 2018, Abiola belonged to a mixed-gender drivers’ forum. However, after the women in the group were shunned by their male counterparts when trying to share input, she decided a new space was needed.

That’s when she established LOWAN as a women-only association where they could speak without intimidation, and more importantly, provide support for fellow female commercial drivers.

Among women drivers, many say they face forms of sexual harassment, assault, rejection, extortion, discrimination, and intimidation by passengers, fellow road users, and even law enforcement agents.

“Some men come into the car and start touching you outrightly, those things are rampant,” Abiola said about the situations they encounter. “We have collaborated with a foundation to report and get perpetrators punished.”