Last Updated on June 29, 2017 by Larious

The Computer and Allied Product Dealers Association of Nigeria (CAPDAN), a trade association of Ikeja Computer Village market traders, has collaborated with a software private company to develop a web portal database which enables the tracking of stolen phones in Nigeria.

Computer village Ikeja is arguably the largest commercial centre in Nigeria for phone traders and exchange of business transactions in Africa, and has often been associated with many criminal activities like sale of stolen phones and devices, computer village is like an avenue to sell almost any gadgets at your disposal.

These criminal activities have dented the image of the community so an initiative such as this is long overdue. The unified database could go a long way in curbing criminal activities, as long as traders are encouraged/enforced to sell, and customers demand to buy, only registered merchandise and not stolen items on the road side or at the shops.

The  Nigerian government can take a cue from the CAPDAN initiative. I believe the private sector has a huge role to play, as we cannot fully entrust the development of a unified database into the hands of a government. Governments come and go, parastatal heads change from time to time. The sustainability plan for a unified database also needs to be on the table for discussion.

It would be a huge development if this goes through and we have a database of mobile phones in the country. Its definitely going go put a stop to the encouragement of stolen phones on the road side or at shops in ikeja computer village.

Recently at computer village, a friend of mine gisted me about how SARS officers came to their store in computer village and raided their shops and fined them a huge some of money before they can open the building.

The main reason was that SARS were tracking stolen phones and they raided their building due to the fact they might be selling stolen phones and devices. I always advise phone buyers to be very careful when buying a used phone, mostly the top end ones like iphones, samsung and the likes. Just because its cheap doesnt mean your a good price crasher or your good at pricing sturvs, now you buy a stolen device and when the police or SARS guys are tracking the stolen device, your caught in-between the buyers of the stolen phone.

Trust me, you would be arrested and you would pay more than the amount you bought the stolen device at the first place. so its best to always buy a uk used phone or buy from a reputable store owner and not on the road side like those pink lips boys who always sells pink lips cream along the road in computer village. I even saw one few hours ago when i was at computer village ikeja recently.

Check out my next article on the story of how a friend bought a fake iphone 6 for the original price. Such a sad story that touches the heart 😀