THE Copyright Society of Nigerian (COSON) on Wednesday staged a peaceful protest against the interference of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) in its case against the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) filed before Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.
Speaking during the protest in Abuja yesterday, a member of COSON, John Oguguo, told newsmen that the thrust of the case is for the court to determine whether the “Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) is an approved collecting society and authorized to collect money on behalf of Nigerian musicians.”
He noted that MCSN is facing several other cases before different judges of the Federal High Court and that, “Each of the cases was filed by the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), an agency of the Federal Government.”
Oguguo said COSON and NCC were surprised that in, “early 2017, the AGF, in a strange letter, directed the NCC to approve MCSN as a collecting society to collect copyright royalties for the Nigerian music industry” stating further that, “the NCC replied Malami giving him several reasons, clearly showing that what he was asking the commission to do is dangerous and unlawful”.
“The NCC objections did not stop the AGF, but in a strongly worded letter dated 22nd March, 2017, Malami ordered the NCC, despite the strong protestations, not only to immediately license MCSN, but to withdraw every case filed by the commission against MCSN, including the seven criminal cases at the Federal High Court before Justice Mojisola Olateregun Ishola, Justice Babatunde Kwewumi and Justice Abdulazeez Anka”.
Oguguo alleged that “Justice Ibrahim Buba is being forcefully prevented from delivering judgement in the matter.”
Adding that judgement was supposed to have been delivered since December 2017.
He also revealed that COSON chairman, Tony Okoroji met with the Minister of Justice on April 6, 2017. “After their discussion including documents he gave to Malami, the AGF said that he did not quite understand the issues but had acted out of persistence pressure from his S.A.”
“The COSON Chairman asked the AGF what he was going to do about the matter since he had become better informed. He told Okoroji to give him seven days. Seven days passed, nothing happened. Another seven days went by and we placed a call to the AGF and there was no answer.
“We sent him a text and there was no reply. We followed up with an e-mail which received no acknowledgement. It became clear we had been sold a dummy. Malami all the time knew what he was doing” he concluded.
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