The newly-reelected President of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN), Mr. Emmanuel Ajufo, in this interview by AKIN ADEWAKUN, talks about issues confronting practitioners in the sector, one of which is the ‘immoral’ charge on vacant signages by government’s agencies:
WITH your recent re-election at the association’s 36th Annual General Meeting, in Abeokuta, what exactly are you doing differently, this time around?
I think that will be unveiled after my retreat with other members of the exco. It’s after our retreat that I can tell you in concrete terms what we intend to do. I have my plans, but that will have to be firmed up with my exco before unveiling them.
We are gradually coming out COVID 19, how are your members’ businesses recovering?
Just like other Nigerians, our members are also facing the pandemic. But we are happy that things seem to be easing off a bit. But, our greatest challenge is still the fact that government sees us as an alternative to oil money. And that is why we still have the fundamental issue of payment on vacant sites. If advertisers are struggling to buy some sites from us, and instead of us using our money to develop and improve such sites for them, we are struggling to use that money to pay for sites that are not occupied, you will find out we won’t have money to be of great service to those advertisers, at the end of the day. And, if we don’t offer to our advertisers what they want, you can then imagine what would become of us. So COVID 19 is one thing, but the other issue is that of vacant sites.
But some states’ outdoor regulatory agencies say those issues are being addressed, in form of discounts, as huge as 35percent, on such sites?
The two areas we need to sort out are Lagos and Abuja, and once we sort those two places out, all others will fall into place. For instance, why do we keep praising the Ogun State governor? We are doing that because the man has set up a board that will regulate OGSAA. We believe that if there is a board in place in Lagos, we’ll take some of these issues to the board and the board will understand and reason with us. As at today, we are still paying 100 percent on vacant sites in Lagos and Abuja, though some states, such as Oyo and Ogun have reduced. But we have not reached our destination, yet. As the president of the association, I am concerned with all our members wherever they work. Lagos is where we have 60 percent of our advertising spend, and once Lagos is not satisfied, you can bet the whole nation will not be satisfied, because most of the advertisers are also based in Lagos and once they see that things are not working well in Lagos, they assume that is how it is everywhere. So we need Lagos to come to our aid. We also need Abuja to come to our aid. There should not be charges on vacant site. We believe that it is immoral to charge on vacant sites. How can you pay for something that you have not earned? So that is one of those things that you people would need to help us drum up.
But the argument is that even if you rent an office, the fact that you didn’t open for months does not mean you won’t pay for those months, and, besides, what they are making you pay in this case is a token?
Let me immediately answer that. We are all subject to different interpretations of this vacant sites issue. Our own interpretation is that the site is also like a house, you don’t also pay house rent until somebody occupies it. Our billboard that is outside is like a house. You only earn revenue until somebody occupies it, so that’s our interpretation. And we are saying that assuming, without conceding, that they want us to pay for land, maybe they should be charging tenement rate. You can imagine the tenement rate you’ll pay for a full house. We don’t use that kind of space for our billboards. If they are going to use that interpretation, we also have our own interpretations, and maybe this will take us to the law court for proper interpretation. We are saying that our billboards are like houses. You only begin to get money, when somebody occupies it. The same way you will get money, when somebody occupies a house. In fact, LASAA law says that you pay 12.5 per cent of your earnings, it never said you should pay12.5 percent of what you have not earned. So our own interpretation is that our site is like a house, and can only be useful when somebody is in it, in terms of rent, so that’s where we are.
What is happening to the association’s Poster Award, it’s been off the stage for some time?
It’s coming up later this year, by the grace of God. The issue is, that Poster Award is our pride. We didn’t do it last year because of COVID. We are going to do it this year, and it’s going to be hybrid, so that we can follow the protocol. Again after our retreat, the chairman of the planning committee will also be briefing us on this. But it will come up this year, by the grace of God.
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Lagos Is Second Least Liveable City In The World For 2021
Lagos is the second least liveable city in the world for the year 2021. This is according to the most recent annual ranking put together by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)…
CLAIM 1: A Twitter user claims UNICEF said any efforts to block children from accessing pornography might infringe their human rights.
and then