Uber drivers and their passengers across Nigeria and Uganda were shocked on Wednesday when the platform abruptly ceased operations in the middle of the day — and, in some cases, even mid-trip.
According to reporting by the Register, the “Uber rapture,” as it’s come to be known, came with little warning — an email notice sent on the very same day.
“We are writing to share some difficult news,” Uber’s email to Nigerian users went, per a screenshot obtained by the outlet TechCabal. “After a thorough review of our business, we have made the tough decision to wind down our operations in Nigeria, effective 2 September, 2026.”
Of course, the deluge of corporate communiques delivered via email in this day and age means an important memo like this could be easily ignored, if not relegated to the spam folder automatically.
Case in point, the same-day memo did little to prepare drivers or riders for the deactivation, prompting waves of outrage on social media when the Uber app was shut off, seemingly out of nowhere.
“The Uber rapture is wild! Drivers and riders were mid-trip when it happened,” wrote Nigerian journalist Anita Eboigbe in a post on social media. “Insane!”
Another commentator wrote that a “friend of mine said they were on a ride when they got the message. She told the driver and he said ‘it’s a lie!’ The drivers who depend on it for livelihood had absolutely no idea.”
“The app shut down mid-trip,” another account located in Nigeria explained in a comment on X-formerly-Twitter. “They never gave a heads-up or hinted at them leaving the landscape. I had done a delivery that same morning and about an hour later, we all got emails saying they were leaving immediately.”
It’s a dramatic step for Uber, which had been operating in Nigeria since 2014, and Uganda’s capital city of Kampala since 2016.
“This decision is limited strictly to these two markets and does not impact our operations across the rest of the continent,” the rideshare company said in a statement to the Register. “Uber remains deeply committed to sub-Saharan Africa, where we continue to see robust growth and long-term opportunity.”
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