I Spent a Week With Lagos's Delivery Riders. The Gig Economy Isn't a Ladder — It's a Treadmill

I want to tell you about Emeka, because I cannot stop thinking about his calculator. He is 24, he rides a battered okada for two food-delivery platforms at once, and every night before he sleeps in the room he shares in Mushin, he does arithmetic. Gross earnings, minus fuel, minus phone data, minus the small "maintenance" he owes the man who fronted him the bike. What is left, on a good day, is not much more than what a labourer makes. On a bad day it is less. I spent a week riding alongside people like Emeka because I had grown tired of writing about the gig economy from a laptop. The pitch d…