PLATFORM LABOUR, DEBT PRECARITY, AND WORKER WELL-BEING IN LAGRIDE’S DRIVE-TO-OWN SCHEME

This study investigates how debt-based asset financing, algorithmic labour control, and state endorsement intersect to produce a distinctive form of platform labour precarity among ride-hailing drivers enrolled in Lagos State‘s LAGRIDE Drive-to-Own scheme. Employing qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis of a Nigeria Info 99.3 FM broadcast and over forty public Facebook comments, the study examines how escalating remittance targets, opaque financial deductions, and constrained exit options reshape drivers‘ labour conditions. The concept of state-enabled debt precarity is developed to describe a labour regime where ownership is promised, but insecurity is institutionalised. The analysis interprets the frequent public use of —modern-day slavery‖ as a vernacular moral diagnosis of extreme asymmetry, coercive dependence, and blocked exit, rather than a legal classification. Findings reveal that remittance escalation intensifies working hours of up to sixteen hours daily, deepens indebtedness, erodes earnings, and generates significant occupational health risks. State backing legitimises the scheme while reducing accountability and complicating governance by blurring public and private interests. Worker resistance emerges through strikes, union mobilisation, and social media counter-publics, contesting the official empowerment narrative. The study contributes to platform capitalism, labour process theory, and governance-gap scholarship by demonstrating how public authority can enable, rather than regulate, digitally
mediated exploitation in the Global South. The study recommendations include regulating asset-financing schemes as labour governance arrangements and separating labour dispute resolution from coercive enforcement. The study highlights the value of mediated public discourse as an empirical site for analysing labour exploitation where direct worker interviews are limited.