Mr. Basil Agboarumi is the Acting Managing Director of Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited. In this interview with DEBORAH KOLAPO, he outlines the challenges facing handling-business in Nigeria, and proffers solutions. Excerpts:
How would you access mobile marketing in Nigeria?
Mobile marketing has improved in a very tremendous way. Nigerian telecommunication and ecosystem migrated from the desktop computing to mobile technology, which is now the highest in the world. So, many people that have not even been using the computer before, started using mobile technology, which is their mobile phones.
The transformation came from the conventional way to modern communication, which is the mobile market. Nigeria didn’t go through the Stage One of regular, old computing, before it moved to the second generation and then, to mobile technology. This is because, most people didn’t use Desktop but moved to the mobile technology. What gave birth to that would have been the result of the awareness, attitude Nigerians adopted. A lot of Nigerians that cannot even type or know nothing about Internet, now have access to the internet. For example, most of them now use Whatsapp’s voice note recorder. Even if you can’t type, you can send voice note in different languages. Even older people that cannot type now have access to the internet.
The need to create the portal became necessary given the rise in the sale of stolen smartphones and fake accessories in the market in the last one year. In the event that a mobile phone was stolen and returned to the market for sale, the trader could quickly log on to the portal to verify if the phone was stolen
How has the innovation affected Nigerians, especially business owners?
Mobile marketing has helped a lot in developing their businesses across the nation. Mobile marketing allows entrepreneurs to get their products and services across to existing and potential buyers with little or no additional cost.
HP Nigeria and Silicon Valley CA, United States, said they were planning to improve the technical and entrepreneurship skills of technicians in the Computer Village. What is the update and how would their moves benefit the market?
It is ongoing. The managements of the company, local and abroad, visited us to further deepen the existing relationship between the HP and the association, especially in the area of technological development.
We are forming this relationship, not just to sell at that level of enterprises but to develop the technical capacity of our people. The HP has promised to look into it and further deepen the knowledge base, in the Computer Village, Nigeria and Africa at large.
The strategic partnership with Silicon Valley CA, USA, will promote information technology infrastructure and growth in Nigeria. It will also provide training programme for members and other human resources, for direct local and foreign internship placement.
What are the factors contributing to the growth of the Computer Village in Ikeja?
The major factor is the sincerity of the people in the Village. About 85 per cent of people in Computer Village learnt how to do business from the scratch, as they get raw knowledge that has helped them in building trust in their patrons. For example, in 2015-2017, when the recession was biting hard and the Naira exchange rate to dollar was as high as N500, businesses in the village were not doing badly. Technicians were adopting newer ways of providing solutions, newer ways of making business orders, newer ways of making business decisions, because they learnt the business from the scratch.
What are the challenges facing the Computer Village market?
The Computer village is the largest information and communication hub in West Africa, as it accommodates over 3000 ICT small and medium enterprises. Like other businesses, we face few challenges and some of them are the fraudulent act practised in the market, such as selling of fake phones, computer accessories and the influx of unexperienced engineers too. These always scare people from coming to the market to get goods or repair technical appliances; but it is now under control.
When the Minister of Communication, Barr. Adebayo Shittu, visited the village in January 20018, were there any promises from the government?
The promises are: working relationships and partnership with the industry and that is what we are working on. The demands of CAPDAN were that the government should drive local content in the ICT sector so as to develop more made-in-Nigeria products to help facilitate funding for ICT research. We want to develop Nigeria-based software, and to also train technicians at the industry to international standard. Others are to construct incubation centre for more training and improve the Nigerian Ecosystem. So, we are expecting supports from the government as we follow up.
How much does the Computer Village generate every month?
The village generate over N39 billion every month. The market contributes meaningfully to the Gross Domestic Products of Nigeria through human capital development and employment.
Since the Village generates that much, what segment constitutes more to the revenue?
The market is an open market with no barriers of entry and exit, allowing great influx of people regularly. The daily business transactions and popularity have attracted new investors and tech dealers across Africa, thereby expanding the market size, income and population, with profound effect on the economy. Selling of mobile phones and computers contribute greatly to its
revenue.
How have you been able to curb fraudulent acts in the market?
We have been doing a lot to reduce fraudulent acts. We have an open channel, like the secretariat, for people to complain and we make sure when the complaints are registered, instituted actions followed. Most of the time, when there are scam cases, we report them to the police, to make sure we have a better and safer
environment.
But some stolen phones find their way to the market. What are you doing to curb this?
We are collaborating with Fonreg Software to develop a web portal, which enables us to track stolen phones. Traders are expected to register on the web portal; every buyer who purchase any item from them, especially mobile phones, will have to comply.
The need to create the portal became necessary given the rise in the sale of stolen smartphones and fake accessories in the market in the last one year. In the event that a mobile phone was stolen and returned to the market for sale, the trader could quickly log on to the portal to verify if the phone was stolen.
If verified that it was a stolen phone, the trader would quickly alert the real owner and the police would be invited for necessary
prosecution.
We are already using all means at our disposal to advise all customers to the Computer Village to always insist on registering their mobile phones with Fonreg, immediately they are purchased.
