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”
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