Chief Tony Okoroji, COSON chairman in one-man demonstration at the Federal High Court, Lagos, on January 15, 2018.
The Federal Government was Thursday requested to immediately ensure that no part of the money resulting from the Private Levy Scheme is shared or spent by anyone forthwith until an equitable process for the distribution of the funds among the various right owners is determined in an open and transparent manner. The Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), made this demand while reacting to the sum of -N-1.2 Billion said to have been recently allocated to the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) from the scheme by the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) for distribution to copyright owners in the music industry.
Addressing journalists during the press conference at the COSON House, Chief Tony Okoroji, Chairman of COSON, he disclosed that the development had raised tremendous controversy.
Presenting a detailed account of the birth and development of the Private Copy Levy scheme, COSON, easily Nigeria’s biggest copyright collective management organisation, with members and affiliates spread across the nation and the world, called on the Federal Government to immediately dismantle what it called the “Abubakar Malami Scam Machine” which it said was foisted by the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, on the nation, to siphon money from innocent Nigerian musicians.
Said Okoroji, at the briefing on behalf of COSON: “When on 15th January, 2018, I embarked on a week-long open demonstration in front of the Federal High Court, Lagos, against Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN, then Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, debatably, the most powerful man in Nigeria, it was after several meetings with Mr. Malami in his Abuja office. Mr. Malami’s words and arguments had left me trembling and scared about the damage such a man, with his dangerous mindset and the enormous power he was wielding, could do to the future of Nigeria and how many years it would take our nation to repair the damage.
“The revelation that the EFCC has traced properties worth over a whopping N212 billion to Abubaka Malami should make everyone sit up. The pocketing by one man and his family not known to be engaged in any significant manufacturing enterprise, any serious trading business or any special service delivery activity, of this frightening amount of money which is bigger than the budget of some States in Nigeria, is the true reason why millions of Nigerians live in abject poverty and penury and many see very little future for our country and have turned to crime that threatens all of us.
“The humungous amount of money said to have been traced by the EFCC to Malami may just be a mere fraction of the fortune tucked away by this man who seems to have his hands in every pie including the so-called recovered Abacha loot which is re-looted by deploying fantom legal consultants who pocket multi- million Dollars in commissions for purportedly writing agreements which many lawyers at the Federal Ministry of Justice can easily do for nothing. What of the Paris Club refund brouhaha?”
Stated the former President of PMAN while revealing the sudden rebirth of MCSN: “On April 3, 2017, I had just returned to Lagos from attending the 75th birthday ceremonies of Evangelist Ebenezer Obey Fabiyi in Abeokuta, when I got a call from a reliable source in Abuja, that without consulting anyone in the music industry and despite the strong protestation of the Nigerian Copyright Commission, Mr. Abubakar Malami was scheming to deceitfully have approved and licensed, the…Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) to collect and distribute royalties on behalf of innocent Nigerian musicians. MCSN’s controlling mind and alta ego is one Mayowa Ayilaran, who is not a songwriter or composer, a music publisher or label owner, with absolutely no investment in the music industry and who has never been elected by the musicians of Nigeria to represent them in any form. An investigation will show that for 36 unbroken years, Mayowa Ayilaran has been the Chief Executive Officer of MCSN.
“At that point, MCSN and its officials were facing seven different criminal cases before several judges of the Federal High Court. Indeed, an earlier attempt to license MCSN, was publicly nullified by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005.
“Having manipulated the system for over 25 years, trial was scheduled to commence in April 2017 in each of the seven cases in which Ayilaran and MCSN were defendants. That was indeed the significant reason for the hyperactivity in which the Honourable Minister of Justice quickly ‘approved’ MCSN without due process so as to truncate the criminal cases against Mayowa Ayilaran.
“Upon Malami’s purported approval of MCSN to license, collect and distribute music copyright royalties, an unrelenting shakedown began to pressure organisations doing business in Nigeria who deploy music in their operations. One of the well-known examples is the Pay TV company, Multichoice, from which the sum of 2.7 billion Naira was grabbed and shared among the MCSN lords, their lawyers and enablers in government. Very few musicians in whose names the billions were obtained, ever saw one Naira of the billions! This scandal of “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop” continues to haunt the Nigerian music industry till today. The time has finally come for a proper investigation of who got how much from the Multichoice shake down.
“In the last several weeks, the Nigerian creative industry has practically been on fire. Apparently, the Nigerian Customs Service has released funds collected under the Private Copy Levy scheme which we first introduced to Abubakar Malami. It has become clear that the sum of 1.2 billion Naira has been allocated by the NCC under the leadership of John Asein to MCSN, Malami’s Special Purpose Vehicle, the leadership of which played no role in developing the scheme and which does not have the database or structure to manage the scheme. The development has sparked a lot of questions and agitations within the creative industry.
“Among the many questions being asked are:
How much, on the whole, has the Customs Service collected with regards to the Private Copy Levy scheme?
How much, has the NCC received from the Customs Service with regards to the Private Copy Levy scheme?
How has the money received by the NCC from the Private Copy Levy scheme been shared to ensure that it equitably reaches all rightful beneficiaries?
Who, where and when was it decided on how the money is to be shared?
“We wish to warn everybody that Karma is not done. As the Abubakar Malami experience shows, all those who think they are smart and are feeding fat at the expense of Nigerian musicians and the music industry will surely pay dearly for their greed”.
COSON made the following ten demands at the Press Briefing among which are:
To make certain that there is sanity and there is stability in the Nigerian creative industry going forward, the Federal Government must intervene immediately and ensure that the scam machine foisted on the Nigerian music industry by Mr. Abubakar Malami, the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, to enable him, his friends and cohorts to siphon money belonging to innocent Nigerian musicians and other creative people, is dismantled immediately.
To ensure that the funds resulting from the private copy levy scheme are not frittered away or rapidly stolen, the Federal Government should immediately request that no money resulting from the scheme is shared or spent by anyone forthwith until an equitable process for the distribution of the funds between the various right owners is determined in an open and transparent manner.
That the purported approval/licence given to Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria to collect royalties on behalf of innocent Nigerian musicians by Mr. Abubakar Malami, the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, without following due process, be immediately annulled in the same manner that the earlier approval/license given to MCSN was annulled by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
That the seven criminal cases at the Federal High Court instituted against MCSN and its officers which under bizarre circumstances were stalled by the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, be re-opened and fully prosecuted by the Nigeria Copyright Commission or in the alternative, by a private prosecutor appointed by the Attorney-General of the Federation.
That a thorough forensic audit of MCSN be mandated and conducted by a notable auditing firm to determine who received what from the 2.7 billion Naira obtained from Multichoice and all the other funds that have been collected by MCSN as royalties on behalf of Nigerian musicians, the music industry and foreign right owners.
That a thorough forensic audit of the Nigerian Copyright Commission be conducted to establish that the funds allocated to the Commission have been justifiably utilised.
That a proper investigation of the sources of income of the leadership of MCSN be carried out without delay.
That all members of COSON should be warned that the recent desperate campaign of the leadership of MCSN asking right owners to join their discredited organisation is to use them to cover up their long-standing deception and daylight robbery of the funds belonging to the musicians of Nigeria.
That no member of COSON should answer the call of the shameless. distressed and factionalised leadership of PMAN which fraudulently sold the land allocated by the government to build the PMAN Plaza in Abuja and pocketed the money and is now looking for Nigerian musicians to use as pawns in its fraudulent marriage with the leadership of MCSN to further defraud the musicians of Nigeria of billions of Naira belonging to them.
COSON assured its thousands of members and affiliates across the nation and its reciprocal representation partners across the world that COSON would continue to forcefully defend their rights and that transparency and accountability would remain the watch words of COSON.
