Ah the fabled Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos - the Silicon Valley of West Africa. Messy, unregulated, and wild, it was the digital mother that created Nigeria's Internet powerhouse. Almost all of Nigeria's, maybe even West Africa's computer leaders can trace their knowledge and success back to Computer Village.

Yet now there are rumors of its demise. Voice of the Nation says:

Recent observation in the last couple of months by some stakeholders indicated that it may not be too long that the surge of crowd that thronged the village reduces drastically. The reason, according to them was the fact that almost every big player in the village is gradually moving the business outside the place for corporate reasons.

One of them, Chief Executive Officer, Westgate Technologies Ltd, Mr. Casmir Ezeudu during the recent unveiling of multiple information technology (IT) products by Samsung West Africa stated that the market is no longer in Computer Village, rather that it was tilting towards other areas. He argued that the market is moving on a gradual pace from the village, while noting that some other big players have started to have their corporate offices well outside the village.

Could this be true? Is Computer Village Ikeja dying? Or could this be just a natural change for the industry - from scrappy upstart to interwoven and disbursed throughout Nigeria's economy.