| Power outage cripples
operations in computer village
By BISI OLALEYE
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
In the last three years, dealers in the Computer Village,
Ikeja have been going through agony. Reason? Most of them
have spent thousands of naira on fuel and are still spending
more to power their generating sets.
One of them, Funmi Davies, said the problem increases if there
is fuel scarcity in Lagos. He said: “That is when most
of us have to rely on ‘black market’ for survival.
Without electricity here, life is unbearable. It’s either
one roasts in heat or provides an alternative for survival.
“Although, residents say that PHCN supplies electricity
from 6.30 p.m each day and takes it by 10p.m, it’s off
again. I think that I should say here that we pay heavy electricity
bills monthly for service not consumed. At least, we should
enjoy what we are paying for here. One can imagine the stress
we have to go through on daily basis.
“ Just at a particular street within the village, a
group contributed money and bought a transformer. Some PHCN
officials demanded N2 million to install it. Up till now,
it is still lying here. What we are facing is sad and yet,
customers expect us to sell our products at a give away prices.
We have to put all we have spent on fuel into consideration.”
Another dealer, Chiagozem Ndubuisi, lamented the huge amount
of money, they spend monthly to power their generating sets.
“If I began to tell you how much we use, you would pity
us. Sometimes, there is no sales to compensate for it. Most
people who come to the village are window shoppers, only a
few buy things here. You can imagine what we go through on
daily basis. It’s not fair. Let PHCN, at least, give
us electricity the time we are here, to reduce our problem.
“At least, we are entitled to electricity. PHCN should
understand that this is the only IT village in Africa and
they should see it that way too by ensuring that there is
constant power supply here. The irony is that, the bills of
PHCN are outrageous. In fact, I don’t now how they get
their reading.
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