April poll: How Computer Village fared

After three consecutive Saturdays that saw a near grinding halt of business activities inside the nation’s largest ICT market, the computer village, ICT vendors inside the market say they have lost millions to the hours of ‘no sale’ that is now synonymous to the elections.

The insist the “order” was allegedly imposed on them so that they are forced to go out and vote which in their case should have been one of free will and not sheer force.

The ICT vendors claim nothing now could ever make them recoup the amount lost had they been open for sale on these Saturdays.

Like every other open market community, the computer village hits records business transactions and product sales on Saturdays as that is the only day that allows civil servants like bankers to buy new gargets or do repairs.

Visitors come from across the country and from neighbouring countries for their IT gadgets and a such, deals run into the millions.

But it would be noted that violent crisis had continued to rock the nation months to the elections. Especially incessant cases the of bomb blasts that never seemed to end.

Victims of these blasts had sadly been the poor innocent populace. Every large assembly of people had been a potential target of these bombers and there had been fears hoodlums would utilise free movements during the elections to wreck more havoc that may equally be fatal.

But some of these traders have insist this no reason enough. They claim elections can still be done peacefully without necessarily having to throw businesses across the country into a nation wide ‘freeze’

A store owner who gave his name as Mr. Gabriel Alele told this reporter “Everybody body in this country is just trying to survive. I don’t think it’s fair that the only day we make meaningful gains is taken from us because of the elections. It is because of this fear of insecurity that they have asked all businesses to close. If they cannot guarantee us our security, why are they a government in the first place ”

But then, it is not the entire day that is taken up by the elections as this phone dealer who would not give his name rightly noted. He said “We try as much as much as we can to quickly make some sales before the end of the day which is not enough. We stock very expensive equipments in out shops here and usually like to close as soon as it starts to grow dark. The last election business lock down ended at 5: pm that is almost the entire day. What can we sell in just an hour.”