By Taye Obateru & Grateful Dakat, Jos

The benefits of the deregulation of the telecommunications industry have become a reference point for many proponents of deregulation. Apart from improvement in access and services is the issue of providing employment opportunities for many Nigerians as dealers in phones and recharge cards, operators of call centers and other ancillary services.

Located along Ahmadu Bello Way in the Plateau State capital is a sprawling market for the purchase and repair of telephone handsets. The ‘booming’ business has attracted a lot of young people and is readily cited as providing a means of livelihood for many unemployed desperate to earn a living. Thus at any given time, scores of young people are sighted in groups discussing ‘business’ on purchase, swapping or repair of telephone handsets.

lThe phone market along Ahmadu Bello Way, Jos

However, as is often the case in such situations, it is an admixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. Just as there are many who do clean business are several others involved in shady deals of purchase and sale of stolen phones and other accessories. Hence, the area is both popular and notorious depending on one’s experience.

If an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, then an over-ambitious one must be his factory or industry. The inordinate desire to ‘happen’, ‘arrive’ and ‘hammer’quickly by youths is increasingly pushing many to uncanny and illegitimate means of survival. So for some of the youth at this market, the sure way of making it fast is to “swap’, ‘tap’ or more clearly put buy and sell stolen phones. The market located besides the PHCN zonal office is fast becoming a notorious spot for sharp practices in cell phone ‘flinging’, ‘swapping’ and racketeering perpetrated by young people. ‘Racketeers’ is what they are called.

Most of the racketeers as it is known in proper language, loiter around there with their gayish jeans strategically clad half down their buttocks with funny looking sneakers. Their t-shirts with all sorts of inscriptions emblazoned on them cut the images of wannabes thinking they are engaged in decent business activities. Many of them denied involvement in shady deals in an interview with Saturday Vanguard but rather see themselves as young people struggling to survive.

Paul who said he is a student of the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Jos, said:  “I think I am old enough to cater for myself. Away from home, a man must struggle and as you know, this country provides little in the way of good employment. So we have to make do with the opportunity that comes our way”.

Oladipupo Adewale of Walex Communication is what could be described as a  phone ‘pimp’. With his table and laptop some distance away from the thick of action going on besides the PHCN building, he said he pimps phones and not women. In other words, he “arranges” phones that suit the fancies of people for them. “Most of the guys you see here are students. They have moved far away from home and they have to survive. I am also a student ; in fact I’m in 200  level at the University of Jos and it is this job of pimping phones that has gotten me to where I am today. I have another shop close to Challenge Bookshop all thanks to this pimping business”, he said.

Asked if any shady deals go on in the market, Wale said he was not aware adding, “but like every market, the good the bad  and the ugly are attracted to it, so there is no ruling out the fact that things like that could take place. But the bottom line is that those guys you see are eking a living.”

A resident, Negro, shares his view saying, “I think they are only trying to make honest Naira. I wouldn’t know if such things as phone racketeering takes place there. However, in my opinion it provides employment for jobless youths.”

Frank who is one of the youths in the business dismissed insinuations that they were into shady deals. “Honestly, I was introduced into this business by a friend who is also a student. But my business is clean and I go home satisfied that I am productive. The problem is that most people do not trust youths so anywhere they see many youths gathered doing their thing, they simply conclude that it must be some irresponsible activities; but I tell you what we do here is legitimate and worthwhile.”

However, as if to deflate their claims,as Saturday Vanguard was speaking with one of the “racketeers,”  a boy aged approximately 11 years came around with a phone he wants to sell. They momentarily forgot that there was a prying eye around and quickly drew him aside and wrapped up the deal. They never bothered to ask how the 11-year old came about such an expensive phone because as far as they were concerned, it wasn’t their business.

But Lois who had a bitter experience of purchasing a faulty phone from the market said the practice encourages the theft of phones. “How did he come about the phone? How did he know there were ready buyers and why was he so confident coming to them?” These were some of the questions she raised.

Lois went on to narrate her ordeal some time ago in the hands of one of the boys. He sold Lois a bad phone  and she only discovered that when she went home. Quickly, she came back and the story was not the same again .

Lois said she was not making any headway she decided to involve a uniformed man who assisted to get her  money back.

“Tales like this abound and  no day passes without one hearing of a scuffle, an argument or sometimes full blown fights between “racketeers” and customers. The thing is that I have learnt my lesson never to deal with them. Anytime I need a phone, I will save up and buy a new one from an accredited cell phone shop around the area; it sure saves one a lot of headache”, Lois added.

Looking at it from a parental perspective Mr. Boyi a Civil Servant maintains it is the failure of parents that has brought about these elements. “When parents abdicate their responsibilities, children are prone to many machinations and inclinations and since they lack life’s experience , they are rather moved by the desire to make money at all cost and so, they get into criminal acts like the phone racketeering you are talking about. From my assessment of the boys there, most of them should be under some parental guidance but it is obvious from their activities and the way they dress that such homely instructions and security are lacking”, he argued.

While many agree that the phone business has provided employment opportunities for the youth, they are concerned that like a double-edged sword, it is also breeding criminal activities and criminal elements. As Dan, a passerby put it, “This place is a ready market for stolen phones. You see different people bringing phones to sell. I remember it was here a certain murder case of a professor of University of Jos was solved when his son came to buy a second hand phone. Hoodlums find a hiding place here and you know wherever there are miscreants, there is also criminality.”

Many of the youth at the market denied involvement in any criminal acts and claim they are there because they have to “survive” or what an American actor Steve Harvey described as “I gotta do what I gotta do.” But like Harvey added, “When doing what you gotta do, do it to generate a totally positive outcome.” This, many argue, is the only way to make the positive aspects of the market outweigh it’s negative sides.