By Emmanuel Elebeke

Nigerians have been urged to seek for proper information before embarking on shopping for IT products to save them from being shortchanged by vendors of fake and adulterated products.

The Managing Director of Blueshield Limited, a Lagos based IT firm, Mr. Chidi Ugwu gave this advice  in an interview with Hi-Tech in Lagos recently.

Mr. Ugwu said Nigerians are being shortchanged by various manufacturers of IT products because they lack the right information to make the right choice of product when faced with both genuine and fake brands in the market.

“The rate at which Nigerians patronize fake products is worrisome, considering the baggage of lost and effects they will record. The first way to identify the authenticity of a product is by the source. If the source is not genuine, there is no way the product will be original. And because a genuine source have name and integrity to protect, they will not want to rubbish what they have build over years in a moment because of proceed from fake products,” he said.

Ugwu who decried the growing trend in the country, said despite the individual losses by the buyers, the economy would continue to suffer significant loss if the trend should continue unchecked.

“If people are consuming original products, the buyer will not only lose, there is also economic lost in the economy because they manufacturers will not pay tax to government. Also, the manufacturers will not consider establishing their factories in Nigeria and employ the unemployed youths.

Ugwu also commended the Central bank governor for initiating a new lending policy for small businesses, which he said would spur upcoming entrepreneurs to soar in their businesses.

“The attitude of Nigerian banks to small businesses before now in terms of lending, was unacceptable

because some of these young businesses men need to be encouraged before they can succeed. They were actually looking for ready made businesses to give loans. But they forgot that every business started small. This is why I must thank the CBN governor for the new lending policy guidelines for banks which is on low interest rate.”

As a HP Gold partner, the Blueshield boss said the company was committed to boosting the fight against piracy in the country. This he said would be done by providing customers with inventive, high quality products and services.