Ghanaian Environment More Business Friendly Than Nigeria— Treepz CEO

The Chief Executive Officer of Lagos and Toronto-based mobility startup, Treepz, Onyeka Akuma, has revealed that the company has received strong support from the Ghanaian government than it currently does with the Nigerian government.

Akuma also revealed that he could meet the Ghanaian Transport Minister with fewer protocols, a feat he said is very difficult in the Nigerian environment.

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Treepz is a ride-share and bus-booking platform that  has so far onboarded 1,469 vehicles ranging from cars to vans on its platform and has completed a total of 543,380 trips across 21 states.

Established in 2019, the company raised a $1.2m seed capital at the Techstars Toronto accelerator program   in March 2021 to help its expansion drive in Ghana.

Formerly called Plentywaka, the company acquired Stabus Ghana and subsequently rebranded as Treepz.

The young startup is ambitious in dominating mobility business through both intra and interstate travels in both Nigeria and Ghana.

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Treepz: Credit Starr FM

The startup is also aggressively pursuing expansion in other African countries.

Although the CEO admitted that Nigeria has the market for Treepz, he said business is easier in Ghana than the Nigerian  environment.

“Nigeria has a big market. Nigeria has a bubbling market where a lot of things happen at a very fast pace compared to when you get into Ghana. Things are a lot easier and you wouldn’t blame them.

“It’s because systems are working a lot better in places like Ghana and other African countries than the way they work here. In Nigeria, there’s almost the need to struggle and fight and push things, so we were very aggressive,” Akuma said in an interview with THE WHISTLER.

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Nigeria has a population of over 200 million and in Lagos where Treepz is competing with other mobility startups, there are over 15 million people.

Ghana which has become an investment destination in West Africa has a population of 31.9 million people.

Akumah said, “But Ghanaians take things a lot easier because systems work. The support we’ve got from government in Ghana has been so strong. For instance, the Ministry of Transportation has been phenomenal. I mean, I was shocked when  I got into Ghana, I came with all the energy and I want to knock this out and get this done really fast. 

“And then everybody’s like, take it easy. You want to meet this person, you meet the person. You want to meet up, just walk into the ministry, I’m talking about the Minister of Transportation.

“It’s not something you can easily do in Nigeria, you know. So, it’s a lot easier doing business in Ghana and to get the business going. But just looking at the start-up space as a whole, I think startups thrive where you have challenges and consistently look for new ways to make people’s lives better.”

According to the Co-founder, Nigeria has a lot of opportunities for startups in Africa, but he said Ghana has been exciting for Treepz.

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He said, “So you have a lot more opportunities to do stuff in Nigeria that you will in Ghana, there’s a lot more bigger markets in Nigeria that you have in Ghana. But it doesn’t take away the fact that the Ghanaian market also is an exciting one and the team we have in Ghana, we’re very excited about them, led by the country manager.

“So, I think then you’ll have a lot more investors paying attention to Nigeria than many other countries, not just Ghana.

He told THE WHISTLER that the Nigerian government needs to partner with startups like Treepz to make the country’s transport sector tech-based.

Akumah believes that partnership with companies that provide tech based solutions  would promote efficiency in running ministries and states. 

The CEO said, “Speaking about the support from the government, I think one just continues to say the government should pay attention to the businesses that are coming out of the country and partner with them and get them to be those that they will use to build the technology that it needs to make things better in the ministries, to make things better in states.”

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