Computer Village - Where stolen handsets are
sold as fairly-used ones

A street in Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos Computer Village in Lagos is often referred to as Africa’s Silicon Valley, as virtually all electrical and electronic appliances could be bought there. It is however fast assuming the notoriety of a place where stolen handsets are bought and sold at ease. Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare reports..

THE fear of the computer village is the beginning of wisdom for strangers and even Lagosians who are not familiar with the intrigues that go on at the market. Strong wits and alertness are the basic survival skills anyone who wants to visit the computer village in Ikeja, Lagos must possess.

This is due to the fact that the computer village has been known for diverse notorious acts. It is a haven for criminals who transact many illegal deals there without fear of retribution.

Though it is called the computer village, nobody manufactures computer there. They only sell handsets, computers and their accessories. It is true that the market has legitimate traders, a wide array of people who engage in diverse forms of trading activities. There are water vendors, business centre operators, recharge card sellers, technicians, handset distributors and retailers, computer engineers and accessory sellers. However, the criminal activities of some people are overshadowing the legitimate businesses and this has become a source of worry to the traders.

Picking of pockets and snatching of handbags especially polythene packs containing newly purchased handsets are the order of the day. It is only an individual that is not aware of the activities in the computer village that will pick up a fight with anybody, no matter the situation, at any corner of the market and at anytime in the day. Such an individual is only leaving himself open and vulnerable to theft. Anybody buying handset from the computer village is indeed a man of strength if he gets home with the handset intact.

It is the norm for an individual to buy a phone only to get home to meet a toy or calculator made in the shape of the handset in a box that was packed in his presence. At all hours, especially during the operating hours at the village, marketers of second-hand handsets or new ones believed to have been stolen dominate the neighbourhood.

They are seen hanging around corners and even in front of registered stores in the market. The criminal acts of these hoodlums have become a great cause of worry to legitimate traders whose businesses have been affected by these negative acts. Traders at the market actually recognise some of these miscreants but there is little they can do for fear of their lives and properties.

Though the police are trying their best by making series of raids on the market, their attempts have made little difference as the hoodlums take to their heels at the sight of police vans, only to return to the market some hours later to continue their illegal deals.

The result of this is that many innocent people suffer losses in the hands of the dubious businessmen at the computer village. Tales of woe from victims of the smart moves of these miscreants increase daily. Salewa Kuku told Lagos Life that she once found her stolen handset with a trader at the computer village. “I used to have a siemens xelibri which I bought for N7,000. It was stolen in a bus on my way to Oshodi one day. Three days later, when I went to the computer village to get another one, I saw a man displaying some used handsets and my own was among. I priced it and he said N1,500. While I was trying to interrogate him, he became suspicious of me and made to move away, so I screamed on him but people around in the guise of separating us allowed him to escape. I later learnt that they were his colleagues and that is the way they operate to avoid being caught,” she said.

Someone else narrated the tale of a woman who entered a one-chance bus and was robbed of her handbag at gun point. She also went to the computer village to get a new handset to replace the stolen one but got the surprise of her life. One of the men that robbed her was manning a shop selling both new and fairly used computers.

Kemi Sobowale is a handset seller at the computer village. She admitted that there are many miscreants among the traders at the market and there is little anybody can do about it; that even traders in the market are not free from their antics. She told Lagos Life that, “those bad people spoil business by luring prospective buyers with lower prices. Some even work with legitimate business owners so that they can have legal receipts to tender. The market is so infested that it has gone beyond the control of the traders here, even the police have given up on this place.”

How then would someone who wants a handset get one at the computer village without having any unpleasant experience? Sobowale said,” if one is not familiar with this place, it is better to come with someone that knows the terrain. Only buy from registered stores and do not look for cheap phones and do not fight anybody.”

She concluded that, “we advise people who just bought new phones to keep it in their pockets and leave only the pack in polythene bags as the nylon bag can be snatched anytime especially if it is branded with the name of a GSM store and is transparent.”

People think the market suffers this fate because the traders have no organisation or umbrella association to take care of their welfare. The market is also always overcrowded to the extent that one cannot pursue a criminal when he snatches one’s property.

Many claim that some products are cheap because they are phones imported from China and Dubai. One of the roadside phone sellers who identified himself as KB said, the allegations levelled against them are false. He said, “my products are cheap because I get them cheap. I do not sell stolen handsets at all. I do not have a choice than to sell at give-away prices because we buy from people who import a lot of things from Dubai and they sell to us cheap.”

It is obviously a case of believing the truth from one’s experience. If one must buy phones at the computer village, he needs to be mentally and physically alert. Watch it! That phone you just bought may be a stolen property.