Mr Victor Dike, a phone repairer in GSM village told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday that he still received high patronage by customers despite the country’s economic recession.

“Even senators come here to repair their phones. You can see the car park, and you can see the number of cars there, which means there is patronage despite the economic recession”, he said.

Another phone repairer, Mr Chitex Obi, said people must repair phones even if every business in Nigeria was affected by recession.

“If you have started using phone and it developed a problem, you will not say you will not fix it because there is recession, of course you will fix it.

“The only challenge is that when customers bring their phone and they are charged, they complain that the price is too expensive and that there is no money.

“But then the work is still coming like before because GSM is the fastest means of communication, so business is still going on’’, Obi added.

Mr Abayomi Williams, who also repairs and sells phone accessories said the economic recession was affecting his business as a result of the increase in the exchange rate of naira to dollar.

He said that fairly used phones that were sold for N5,000 were being sold for N10,000, adding that bulk phone accessories they bought for N50,000 now cost N100,000 because of the dollar exchange rate.

“Customers are complaining because they are been charged highly and that is because the prices of things have changed and electricity tariff is high too.

“Customers drop their phones with little or no money and this really affects business a lot. It was not like this,” he told NAN.

Williams also pleaded with the Government to check the fluctuating rate of dollars to Naira.

Mr Mike Dickson, another phone repairer, said that things are not going on well as expected, adding that sales have dropped as a result of low patronage.

“Things are not going on well as expected, as it is now you can see that the market is not full like it used to be.

“Customers are few unlike before when the market used to be crowded; I would say we need change in this our country to increase business.

“Since we get the spare parts very expensive, we tend to charge the customers high too so we wouldn’t run at a loss.

“And since customers have budget on what they want to spend to repair their phones, they find it difficult to pay when they are charged”, he said.

He urged the government to look into the economy and put the right things in place.