The Trouble With Tokunbo Electronics Products

The Other Side Of  Tokunbo Electronics

My post today will shed light on an issue that is common to Nigerian landscape- the importation and selling of second hand electronic products, otherwise called 'Tokunbo' products. These products are very popular with Nigerian consumers as you would find them gathered around their merchants, picking items like pressing irons, blenders, micro wave ovens, televisions, sound systems, e.t.c at very affordable prices. 

Nigerian customers patronize these second hand products for a number of reasons. First, they are cheap compared to other established brands like Sony, Samsung, LG, Thermocool whose brand new products tend to be on the high side for Nigerians. For a fact, it is the 'comfortable' Nigerian consumer that can afford to go to an electronic store to buy a product direct from the stall. Even to encourage sales, some corporate workers are encouraged to pay by installment by these electronic stores. In the absence of better option, Nigerian consumers will resort to the second best-tokunbo products.

Another reason for this trend among Nigerians is the seeming reliability of these imported products. You would find an average 'tokunbo' product lasting better than even the brand new 'China' product. The durability and affordability of 'tokunbo' products make them very appealing to Nigerian consumers but there is a bad side to this popular trend which as an energy efficiency expert I am concerned about.

The bad side is that majority of tokunbo products sold in Nigeria and all over Africa are 'electronic waste' of European and America countries, useless in their countries of origin for their inefficiency and obsolescence. Many of these outdated products are not with energy efficiency standards that normalizes their consumption of electricity. Most of the tokunbo products are energy guzzlers that results in high electricity tariffs for their users, burdening the already over-stressed energy  supply in the nation.

It is my hope that the Federal Government would do something to reduce the importation of these second hand products into the country. They constitute a great challenge to the economy and pose great risk to the nation's drive to achieving sustainable energy. So next time you decide to buy a tokunbo electronic product, think twice about it.

Take care.

Wale Owoeye Esq.
www.zeusenergylimited.com