I did my NYSC year in Lagos in the vicinity of 1988 and 1989, and I lived on Ola Ayinde road at Ikeja and later at the NYSC secretariat at Opebi. I knew the region exceptionally well. I saw Otigba spring up apparently from no place, and it developed to wind up distinctly a noteworthy market for innovation items. The dealers there called themselves the "Lagos Computer Village" yet a great many people know the zone as Otigba. It is found advantageously close Ikeja Bus Stop which is a noteworthy transportation center point in the city. Sarah Lacy the originator San Francisco-based tech blog "Pando" named it Nigeria's "BestBuy" store, after the well known US one-stop innovation chain.
While contrasted commonly with China's Shenzhen's SEG Electronics Market, Otigba is more than Nigeria's own particular BestBuy. In some ways, Otigba has been our own Silicon Valley. Not all tech business visionaries are programming designers; some can likewise be in the matter of equipment and administrations. Otigba merchants not just made the main commercial center for innovation items, yet they additionally worked interestingly a moderate administration industry around it. They developed rapidly past pilfered programming and utilized equipment deals.
Otigba has been an intensely problematic wonder. The market drives in there democratized the offers of innovation items in Nigeria. They found the force of media promoting early and took the opposition from the avenues of Ikeja to the daily papers. Posting costs of PC items in the Nigerian dailies profoundly affected the business all in all. The business visionaries at Otigba detected the blast that was coming after cybercafes got to be distinctly pervasive in Nigeria and situated themselves for it. They discovered less expensive hotspots for items and the innovation business profited from it in general.
Like the other significant markets in Lagos, Computer Village at Ikeja did not simply serve Lagos. It was a center point for individuals searching for items from all over Nigeria. Promoting in the daily papers got that going, and it is the thing that quickened the development of the market.
Otigba is more than the opposition. It is likewise about joint effort and apprenticeship. The purest type of the Igbo apprenticeship show I have seen was at the Lagos Computer Village. My companion, the ex-financier, Charles Mezu - who is the organizer of Palette PCs, chose to stay in Victoria Island to serve the top of the line showcase yet his more youthful siblings picked up "Flexibility" from him to set up their shops in Ikeja and flourished. These were not insensible or jobless young fellows but rather individuals with postgraduate degrees from the UK. They found the force of conglomeration that Otigba made. They had seen that the fate of Nigerian innovation was not in Victoria Island, it would have been dictated by the market powers at Otigba, and they chose to assume a part in it.
The best advantage of Otigba to Nigerian innovation was in the territory of cell phones and portable innovation. The GSM organizations by and by lost the imposing business model of cell phone deals to the entrepreneurial brokers at Otigba. They sold the gadgets, as well as constructed a repair industry around it. Organizations like SLOT institutionalized their item and administration offering from that point and started to scale. Otigba made and formed them, and thusly, they characterized the cell phone advertise.
From outside, the confused lanes of Otigba resemble whatever other products showcase in Lagos, yet they are considerably more. They are pioneers of Nigerian innovation. The merchants there are the nearest to the beat of the Nigerian innovation item shopper, and that is the reason the Asian innovation Majors don't joke with that market. Otigba is the portal into the brain of the normal Nigerian innovation item purchaser.
3 Ways Otigba can explore what's to come
What are the variables constraining the nearness of OEMs in Computer Village and what is the path around these breaking points?
Otigba is a reaction and a fundamental piece of a social wonder instead of simply being a monetary arrangement. OEMs need to adjust to the general population's social subtleties the way Otigba has done. Otigba developed from apprenticeship and the advancement it supports. OEM circulation is distinctive. The Igbo dealers from Otigba officially possess item conveyance. OEMs need to carry on like FMCG organizations and depend on this circulation. Otigba is both a commercial center and a circulation point. Commercial center advancements can happen from that point and spread however not mechanical development in the total sense. They can adjust to changing socioeconomics substantially speedier than general OEM channels.
Otigba has developed exponentially despite government investment. By what means ought to government get included and what are the possibilities of such organization together?
The legislature needs to perceive that this type of enterprise is staying put and they have to give foundation to energize it before searching for approaches to benefit from it. Otigba makes more employments past Ikeja. Otigba is at the highest point of the innovation gear and consumables production network since circulation channels have been manufactured straight from that point. It is hard for OEMs to supplant 'Imu Ahia' and it is harder for government. You can't enact away an enterprise culture however you can adjust to it and empower it. Otigba is an indispensable piece of Nigerian innovation and not only the Lagos tech scene.
Are there any approaching risks to this detonating market? What are the difficulties if Otigba is permitted to keep on growing unchecked?
PC Village is the nearest to an immaculate market in Nigeria. Markets have their restrictions and are in a way automatic. The market has officially developed past Otigba with bunches of dispersion channels made. In Victoria Island on Saka Tinubu, there is a market that has created where a large portion of the items are sourced from Otigba. A similar thing occurs in most different urban communities. Otigba has scaled and not simply SLOT. On the off chance that Otigba could survive all around subsidized web based business organizations, I question that whatever else could murder it effortlessly aside from an unfriendly government. Antagonistic governments can execute any industry or market.