Dispatch Riders Face a Race Against Time as Rain Disrupts Drugs Deliveries

Since dawn, Chukwudi Dennis, a self-styled dispatch rider for Ocean Logistics, has been cursing the skies. Such tantrums aren’t out of the ordinary for Dennis when heaven opened its windows, but today is different; he is carrying a prescribed drug purchased online for a 54-year-old woman who is struggling to stay alive after an endless battle with diabetes.

Sadly, his final location is a three-hour ride to Odonguyan in Ikorodu, or rather, a 3-hour trek through the mud, provided all goes to plan.

“It’s a living hell to deliver goods when it’s raining; you can barely see clearly, and some of the roads are awful,” says Dennis, armed with over 10 years of experience as a dispatcher.

The 41-year-old rider is not even sure if his 13-year-old motorcycle will weather the storm on the bumpy road, paramount before Dennis is to deliver the drugs, but endless calls from other customers, who equally want their goods delivered in due time, is making him lose his head. However, 10 years of navigation have taught him to keep his core. Each time he heads out on his motorcycle, Dennis asks himself the same question: Will his jalopy survive the journey?

While Dennis seeks answers to his million-dollar question, another dispatch rider, Kamaru Oluwaseun, is being held up at Ikotun roundabout by local government touts who are bent on extorting money from him. Despite providing his rider’s card, LASAA registration, operational permit, road tax certificate, driver’s and conductor’s badge certificates, gaseous emission permit, and just name it, he was jolted around for about ten minutes by the stern-looking touts, but he endured his ordeal in silence. Thorn between the devil and the deep blue sea, nothing eases his burden, nothing except the constant effort by passersby and onlookers who wade in to free him from the grips of these touts.

Although the Lagos State government vehemently frowns on extortion from registered dispatch riders, that was too late, as Kamaru reluctantly parted with 3000 naira before he was let go. With 35 minutes wasted from his precious time, he zoomed off, cursing his luck. In a country where jobs are scarce, securing a source of income is highly valued, but Kamaru, who is in his early forties, must support his wife and two children

‘My life as a dispatch rider is tough, but a fairly good one. I make money daily from my side hustle, and I’m able to put food on my table. I will never be rich, of course. I mean, it takes a monthly contribution to be able to buy new shoes and things like that, but I don’t have to go around stealing things. The family can still afford two square meals daily, and I can send my kids to school. Nobody tells me what to do when I don’t need to go chasing after my money. I am my own boss. It is really a tough and exhausting job, ” he said, wiping a thick sweat from his forehead.