Security has been beefed up at Computer Village Ikeja to boost customer confidence in Nigeria’s largest technology market.
Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria (CAPDAN) says it has also bought a patrol van as part of measures to improve security in the technology market cluster.
The move was a demonstration of his administration resolve to fight rising incidents of violent crimes in the market, Mr Ahmed Ojikutu , CAPDAN President says at the launch of the vehicles this week.
The vehicles would serve as boost to the confidence of the market task force and enhance their operational capability to discharge their duties, he says.
“We are rebranding and changing the village. The reason for this patrol is to make sure that computer village is secured in the afternoon and secured at night. A reconciliation committee will also be put in place and all misunderstandings and dispute that arise in the cause of doing business in the market will be forwarded to the committee.”
He assured the members that the actions that will be taken by the committee will be impartial. “ We will no longer need to go to the police, a third party to resolve our own issue for us.”
According to the CAPDAN President, “The government is giving computer village a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) loan. People can testify to that and it is going to be in 2016 that they will probably tell us how many and how much they are giving. No other market is given this opportunity.”
At the event CAPDAN also launched a Close Users Group (CUG) in partnership with Globacom and also a modern secretariat to carry out all this operations.
According to Ojikutu, the CUG enable its members call other members unlimited calls within the group at a cost of N1000 for the first month and N500 every month after the first month.
Speaking further, he said his administration is working on providing free internet access for everybody that comes into the market. “That is to say if any customer comes into computer village, they will be able to browse freely with the free WIFI”, he said.
“This CUG that we are launching today is for all of us to call ourselves freely. If you have 20 numbers of staff, all of them, you can talk to them freely. The SIM is free so if you pay N1000 to buy, that N1000 is for you to call all those people in computer village. If you have other networks, you can port one of the lines to Glo and when you port it, we will be able to call ourselves freely”, he adds
“What this will do for us is that it will make our accessibility closer and cheaper and it is endless. So if we have conference call or anything, it will be free and it will be unlimited. These are things to foster and develop our businesses. There are a lot of other things that we have also put in place”, he added.
While unveiling the CUG lines, Chief Obinna Ozoenu, the Managing Director of IT World, a Nigerian IT trading company, thanked the CAPDAN President and his administration for achieving this feat in a short while and also for striving to unite members of the association who hail from different parts of the country.