Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) Nigeria’s biggest
Copyright Collective Management Organization has demanded from the Nigerian
Copyright Commission (NCC) a bold and unreserved apology to the thousands of
members of COSON, the entire Nigerian creative community and the international
copyright family for the commission’s terrible misuse and abuse of power. COSON
has also asked that the NCC make appropriate restitution to COSON for harassing,
intimidating, maltreating and bullying COSON and several of its officers with
powers not founded on the laws and constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria and denying the Nigerian music industry billions of naira due to it.
At a massively attended World Press Conference held on
Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at COSON House, Ikeja, COSON said that it was amazed to
discover that some senior officers in the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) a
federal government agency, were neck deep in the almost 3 years old conspiracy
to hijack COSON and turn it into a private ATM and a private piggy bank for
them and their friends with a plan that if their conspiracy fails, they must
destroy the organization which has become the flagship of the Nigerian copyright
system across the world.
Speaking at the Press Conference, Chief Tony Okoroji,
Chairman of COSON said “when the COSON House was commissioned nearly three
years ago, a lot of people were surprised that there was not one Naira of government
money in the acquisition and construction of this magnificent building, no
donor dollar or pound came from anywhere and that we did it with no bank loan
and no debt of any type.
“For eight years, not one of the highly trained staff of
COSON received his or her salary one day late. It is also a fact that no COSON
member has ever paid any registration fee, monthly dues or subscription of any
type yet every COSON member is entitled to some income from us every year.
“We are very proud of the success of COSON which is a product
of the leadership’s laser focused dedication to our cause and the deft
management of our resources.
“Unfortunately, the COSON success also became our albatross.
As it became clear that we have broken the jinx and built an organization which
across the continent was being celebrated and admired, several midnight plots
and gang-ups began to emerge. COSON had become too successful with the
magnificent COSON House shining and millions of naira in the bank. As a result,
some people could no longer sleep. Suddenly, a plot was hatched by a handful of
people to hijack for themselves COSON which we have built as a pan-Nigerian
organization to provide succor to all owners of musical works and sound
recordings in every nook and cranny of the Nigerian nation. Their dream became
how to turn COSON into their private ATM and a private piggy bank for them and
their friends”.
Said Okoroji, “it is common knowledge that the leadership of the NCC deployed the police, the EFCC, SARS and other agencies of
the state and has harassed, intimidated, maltreated and bullied COSON and
several of our officers and made unending attempts to foist an individual on COSON
as Chairman of the Board with the stiff resistance of the members”
“What exactly is our crime?”, the COSON Chairman asked and to which he
answered,“Our crime simply is that we built a Nigerian institution that works
and is admired.”
The celebrated former President of PMAN said that not being successful
in planting their preferred person as Chairman of the Board of COSON which is a
private company with its internal affairs governed by its Memorandum and
Articles of Association and the Companies & Allied Matters Act, NCC wrote a
letter to COSON dated 30th April 2018 and without a court order,
purportedly suspended the approval of COSON to collect and distribute royalties
on behalf of its members thereby endangering the copyright assignments received
by COSON and the huge investments made by the organization and thereby
threatening the constitutional rights of COSON and its members and licensees to
earn income from their intellectual property.
He went on to say, “as if that was not enough, the NCC went ahead to
send another letter to COSON dated May
3, 2018 but received by us a day before the letter was supposed to have been
written, specifically on May 2, 2018, with the letter purportedly directing the
freezing of the bank accounts of COSON without an order of court and in the
said letter, the commission directed COSON which it had already directed not to earn any
income, to continue to pay the personal emoluments of its staff, the source of
the funds to pay such emoluments not stated by the commission”
Chief Tony Okoroji, one of Africa’s best known experts on Copyright,
author of the book, “Copyright & the New Millionaires”, a member of the
committee that drafted the Nigerian Copyright Act and twice a member of the
Governing Board of the NCC brought out and reviewed sections of the Nigerian
Constitution, the Copyright Act, the Companies & Allied Matters Act (CAMA)
and the CMO Regulations made by the NCC.
Said Chief Okoroji, “It is a fact that the Copyright Act in Section 39
(2) gave the Nigerian Copyright Commission the power to approve collecting
societies and in Section 39 (7) gave the Commission the power to make
regulations specifying the conditions necessary to give effect to the approval
of collecting societies.
“Mysteriously, some persons in the NCC have assumed and led the
commission to believe that the limited powers given to the NCC in Section 39
(7) of the Copyright Act is a carte blanch authority to meddle in the internal
management of CMOs. The commission has gone ahead to make diverse “regulations”
which Section 39 (7) of the Copyright Act never gave it the power to make.
“This is how the NCC unlawfully gave to itself the power to
unilaterally intervene in the choice of the Chairman of a CMO, the power to on
its own suspend, revoke or restrict the approval given to a collecting society
or embark on an audit of a collecting society or order the freezing of the bank
accounts of a CMO without ever going to court and seeking the order of court.
“We hereby state emphatically that until the leadership of the NCC
reads Section 39 (7) of the Copyright Act properly, understands that the NCC’s
power to make regulations is limited to the conditions necessary to give effect
to the purposes of Section 39 of the Act and that the NCC is not the omnibus
regulator some of its officers have assumed, the commission will continue to
face crisis”.
Said Chief Okoroji, “it is a fact that nowhere in Section 39 of the
Copyright Act or any other Section of the Act or any other law is the NCC given
the unilateral power to suspend, revoke or in any way restrict the approval
given to a collecting society or embark on the audit of a collecting society or
order the freezing of the bank accounts of a CMO without an order of court.”
“While the NCC has been given the power to bring a CMO to life, it has
not been given the power to kill a CMO”.
Said Chief Okoroji, “We have become freedom fighters for the Nigerian
creative industry. We are fighters against the use of state power to muscle and
overwhelm innocent citizens. We will not slumber, and we will not tire. We
refuse to be made slaves in our nation. We will fight the tyranny that has been
unleashed on us until we gain total victory for the artistes of Nigeria”.
Enumerating the losses suffered
by the country as a result of the NCC misadventure, including millions of
dollars in foreign investment which the Nigerian music industry has lost, Chief
Okoroji declared, “the Nigerian
Copyright Commission has brought shame to the Nigerian nation. We therefore on
this 10th day of March 2020 call on the Federal Government of
Nigeria to call the Nigerian Copyright Commission to order. We demand of the
Buhari Administration to order the Nigerian Copyright Commission to publish a
bold and unreserved apology to the thousands of members of COSON, the entire
Nigerian creative community and the international copyright family for its terrible
misuse and abuse of power and to make appropriate restitution to COSON”
FOR COSON:
