By Chikodi Okereocha

 

To a first-time visitor, the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria`s commercial nerve centre, comes across probably as the most chaotic and problematic, if not notorious Information and Communications Technology, ICT, market in the West African sub-region. Movement in and out of the sprawling market regarded as Africa`s largest and most vibrant market for the buying and selling of mostly assorted brands of computers and telephone handsets, and their accessories, is made difficult by inadequate packing space.

The few available spaces in the market, originally designed as a residential area, have been taken over by street traders, who earn a living either as technicians, food and water vendors, cobblers, business centre operators, or dealers in second-hand clothes, popularly called `Okirika` in local parlance. With their makeshift kiosks, they have taken over all the roads leading to the market thus, making it more rowdy and chaotic for both traders and customers.

The chaos inadvertently spurned an army of unemployed youths, mostly touts, who, through their various nefarious activities, made the market notorious. The magazine gathered that although, some of the touts earn income legitimately in the market by seeking out buyers on behalf of sellers for a fee or commission, majority of them are said to be responsible for the various vices in the market relating to fake products, offering used products for new ones, and outright extortion and stealing from unsuspecting customers. There have been ugly tales of woes by Nigerians and foreigners in the hands of these touts at the market.

For instance,

a female journalist recently fell prey to the antics of some dubious traders in the market when a used Nokia mobile phone was passed off to her as brand new one. The Lagos-based journalist, who declined to be mentioned, said that she was aware of the sharp practices of some traders and touts in he market hence, her decision to purchase the Nokia phone from a supposedly authorised shop. She said that after she made payment and a receipt was given, the phone, which was dully tested and certified okay, was neatly packed and delivered to her.

Clutching the phone, she went back to her office and started using it. But few days after, the unexpected happened. She was using the phone that fateful day when one of her colleagues, who was apparently attracted by the phone`s esthetics, begged to use it to make a call. She proudly handed the phone over, but was surprised when her colleague informed her that the Nokia phone was an old phone carefully packaged and wrapped in a new casing. Still seething with anger for purchasing an old phone at the prize of a new one, the journalist, however, said she was unable to trace the shop where she bought it. According to her, the rowdiness of the market made it extremely difficult to locate the shop.

The experience of the journalist is just one out of several that take place at the market. Cases abound where products are bought only for customers to discover later that they are mal-functioning. In most cases, such customers are left to lick their wounds as they often discover that the seller has shifted position, while the new person would either claim not to know anything about the transaction or the former person occupying the spot

the spot. There are also several cases of pirated products in the market, including outright theft. Such ugly incidents occur mostly when customers purchase goods from the road side sellers or the ones with smaller shops instead of dealers in big stores.

Mac Eze, vice president, Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria, CAPDAN, the umbrella association of dealers in the market, admitted that the activities of street traders and the preponderance of fake and sub-standard products in the market and other vices have been a torn in the flesh of the association. “Touting is a very big problem in the market,” he said, adding, however, that stealing has actually reduced. He said that because of the menace of street trading and touting, CAPDAN at a point approached the Lagos State government who obliged them with a Black Maria stationed at the market.

The result was the arrest and detention of culprits. Some offenders who managed to secure their release, he said, did so after they were forced to sign an undertaking never to come back. Also, warning signs were put at strategic points, prohibiting street trading. According to him, the system worked briefly before the same officials of the government compromised by collecting money from street traders. They later removed their men thus, opening the floodgate for such illegal practices to thrive to the detriment of the traders and their customers.

The vice president also placed the blame for the influx of fake and sub-standard products at the doorstep of the regulatory authorities, particularly Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, and the Nigerian Customers Servi

Services, NCS.  Accusing SON and NCS of laxity, he argued that every product in the market ought to have been checked at the entry points to ensure they meet set standards. “Most of these products come from Asian countries, and the same Asian countries produce for America, Britain and others. That such sub-standard products do not find their way into America and Britain is because they check to ensure they meet acceptable standard.,” he pointed out, adding that there is nothing wrong with SON having a presence in the market to inspect every container that comes in to ensure standards are met. 

But the chaos and the gab of notoriety the market has acquired as a result of the activities of touts and other unscrupulous traders has not robbed it of its vantage position as the busiest in the West Coast. Products competing for patronage range from computer parts to photocopiers, compact discs, CDs, digital equipment such as cameras and removable disk or flash key, otherwise known as Universal Serial Bus, USB, to software. Mobile phones and mobile phone accessories, (memory cards, chargers, batteries, casings, among others, are also sold there). Computers and computer accessories including DVD writers, mother boards, liquid crystal display, LCDs, keyboards, RAM cards, among others, are also on display at the market.

Others are digital products such as camcorders, digital cameras and flat screen televisions, among other electronic devices. Daily, customers from Nigeria and other neighbouring West African countries, such as Ghana and Republic of Benin visit the market. They are joined by customers from Asian countries, like China, Malaysia, Pak

Pakistan, Singapore, Japan and India, who also throng the market in search of good deals. At the Computer Village, customers have the opportunity of buying products at affordable prices plus the opportunity of reselling fast-moving brands even with very little capital. The entire Computer Village, which covers an area of over 20 acres of land, has been taken over by more than 400, 000 registered members of CAPDAN.

Eze told the magazine last week, that over 400, 000 people who are registered members of the association are currently earning their livelihood from the market where business is on the fast lane. He disclosed that other Computer Villages have sprung up in such places as Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, including the one at Oshodi, Lagos, and Owerri, Imo State, adding, however, that none of them is comparable to Ikeja Computer Village in terms of size, volume, and patronage. He said the market, which seats on over 20 acres of land, covering all the major streets in Ikeja, namely Kodesoh, Oremeji, Ola-Ayeni, Otigba, Olayi Tomori, and Pepple streets, and stretching as far as Awolowo Way, is arguably the largest and busiest ICT hub in the whole of Africa.

Eze`s claim is not without proofs. For instance, following agreement reached  between officials of CAPDAN and Lagos State government during the recent closure of the market over alleged tax evasion and environmental offences, the state`s board of internal revenue now smiles to the bank with over N1 billion annually. The amount comes from an annual tax of N30,000 to be paid by each of the 27,000 registered members of CAPDAN and 50,000 operators o

of kiosks, who are to pay a tax of N5,100 annually. This was as at 2008. With CAPDAN membership already swollen to its current 400,000 including an unspecified number of kiosk operators, the state government has certainly hit a goldmine in the computer village.

The market was thrown into confusion in 2008 when, on the orders of the state government, policemen and Kick Against Indiscipline, KAI, officials stormed the place to enforce a lock-up order. The operation followed alleged refusal by the traders to pay tax as well as environmental offences. This kept the market under lock and keys for four days — a situation that inflicted heavy losses on the traders. The market was later re-opened after a truce was brokered between both parties, who have now come to see the market as a honeypot of sort.  “This market is attracting government`s attention because business is booming here…,” Emmanuel Nwigwe, who sells mobile phones, told the magazine then.

Eze said that it was in realisation of the potential of the market as a huge revenue earner that the state government under Bola Tinubu, the former governor, responded positively to the association`s letter asking to be relocated to a more convenient place. “We have gone to government concerning how to relocate us. If you look at the whole place you see that packing is a problem, movement is not that easy. We wrote a letter to Tinubu and he was able to give us somewhere in Gatankowa, along Abeokuta Expressway,” he said.

Eze explained that apart from inadequate packing space, which has in turn made movement in and out of the market a herc

a herculean task for traders and customers, the cost of renting shops in and around the market`s present location has been a challenge for members of CAPDAN. “Here is a residential area and many of the buildings are owned by individuals and the rate they are charging us is very high so,” he lamented.

According to him, a standard shop at the Computer Village goes for between N300,000 and N500,000 per year, depending on the size. And to make matters worse, landlords, he said, ask traders to pay for as much as five years, failure of which the shop would be given to the next highest bidder.

1. Eze, who is also the chief executive officer of Devine Sochiz Investments Limited, a company specialising in computer sales and maintenance, however, regretted that so far, not much has been done on the relocation exercise because of the activities of a few greedy moneybags within the association who, for selfish reasons, came up with an alternative idea of relocating the market to Arepo, Ogun State, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. He said that at Arepo, a plot of land originally meant to be sold to traders at the rate of N50,000 was jacked up to between N300,000 and N400,000 per plot.    

The activities of the same greedy members of CAPDAN, he said, was also responsible for the closure of the market by the state in 2008. He said that because of the divisive activities of the group, many members of the association were no longer paying their dues and levies to CAPDAN`s purse. Also, operators in the market were no longer paying taxes to the authorities, just as many people no longer paid attention to the need to clean up the e

the environment regularly. The result of this was that heaps of refuse started pilling up in and around the market and gutters were blocked, prompting the state government to close down the market for four days.

However, the closure of the market, in a way, became a unifying force as most of the members of CAPDAN who incurred heavy losses following the closure, quickly came back into the mainstream after discovering that they were being misled. Eze said following the gradual mending of cracks within the association, the process of relocation of the market to Gatankowa is now on course. He disclosed that the association had commenced negotiations with developers and that before the end of the year the effect of such negotiations would be felt.

As arrangement for the relocation continues, a noticeable sore point in the booming business in the market is the dominance of foreign brands at the detriment of local computer brands such as Zinox, Omatek and Brian computers. At present, the market is dominated by major foreign brands such as HP, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, and Fujitsu Siemens, among others. Again, Eze said that government, particularly the current administration of President Umaru Yar`Adua, is to blame for its penchant for policy inconsistency. He accused the Yar`Adua administration of refusing to continue with the former administration`s policy of encouraging the patronage of locally produced computers.

What is today known as Ikeja Computer Village was a residential area until late 1999 or early 2000 — the beginning of the full liberalisation of the Nigerian telecoms/ICT industry under the administration of former President Olusegun

Obasanjo. That was when the country, particularly corporate Nigeria, started catching up gradually with the rest of the world in telecoms/ICT especially Internet Technology. It took a few savvy and discerning Nigerian businessmen to discover that a major industry was about to spring up. Some of them quickly took vantage positions, first in Otigba Street, Ikeja where they started the buying and selling of IT equipments and devices.

But the big bang came in 2003, two years after GSM services were introduced to Nigeria. That was when the computer village became a household name among telecoms users, especially small businesses and end users. And in less than a decade, what started as a 10-shop computer market in Otigba has grown into a huge market covering a sizable portion of Ikeja from where it now drives the country`s vision of promoting ICT for national development through the supply of relevant computers, software and allied products and services. The market also provides employment, as well as opportunities for private enterprise and investment and computer education.

Kunle Oseni, special adviser to the governor on special duties informed the magazine earlier that efforts were being made to relocate some of the traders to decongest the place. He said apart from relocating some of the traders to Silicon Village at Airport Bus Stop, along Agege Motor Road, the Ikeja Local Government had also provided a plaza, which the traders were yet to occupy. He also assured that the state government would ensure that there was no street trading in the market.

When this is done, operators and stakeholders who spoke with the

magazine say it would pave the way for the market to grow into a formidable ICT hub capable of competing with any in the world.