death of a village?

The Lagos State Government has announced an agreement to move Otigba Computer Village from the valuable and central area of Ikeja to Gatankowa, which on the far outskirts of town near the border with Ogun State. Business Day has details.

This could be a terrible thing for the market, which now is in the somewhat upscale area of Ikeja and is not far from the airport. Check out the statistics the article cites:

While formal market figures for computer sales in Nigeria are put at between 250,000 and 300,000 desktops and laptops yearly, it is estimated that for every computer sold in the formal market, 15 are sold in the informal market here. That would put informal market figures at about 3.7 million. Industry watchers say well over half of the informal market business is done in the Ikeja Computer Village.

Pushing the market out of town, getting rid of the hawkers who surround the market: this could do real damage to that trade. What's wrong with working with the market association to professionalize and improve security right where it is?