Why we now vet goodwill messages—Lekan Fadolapo, DG, ARCON

The Director General, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), met with select brand journalists recently to discuss the state of advertising practice in Nigeria, the agency’s recent reforms and reasons behind its decision to now vet goodwill messages, hitherto excluded from the vetting list. AKIN ADEWAKUN brings excerpts from the session.

OF what importance is the council’s recent victory at the court, where its rights to regulate advertising were reiterated?

It is very significant to us and the industry. The court held that ARCON has a right to make pronouncement as it relates to advertising, advertisement and marketing communications. This further validates the pronouncements and  Bye-Laws which ARCON has made. The law is not in conflict with the constitution. It shows  that the body is legally established by the national assembly.

There are these eyebrows raised about your decision to begin to vet ads on the digital space. Why this decision?

Before now, all we had was e-commerce on that space. But now, it has moved from e-commerce to full digital economy. In fact, what happens in the digital space is far more terrible. So what do we do? We can not leave that space unregulated. That’s where we are. If you have an Instagram page, and it is locked, that means if our monitoring people pass through the front of the page, it will be locked, and, as a result, they can not harass you.  But if it is open to the public, and you are putting advertisements there, the ads must be regulated. Look at the CBEX crisis, Nigerians lost between N1.2 trillion N1.5 trillion, and most of these things are done like Forex trading. I’ve seen a retired military officer who invested his entire retirement savings in Forex and lost everything. So somebody needs to protect that space. Interestingly, what the recent judicial pronouncement has done is to reiterate our powers to do all this.

But does the agency have the capacity to carry out this very vast task?

In terms of capacity, we have the technology, we have the human. As of today, we have our offices in 32 states of the federation. Besides, we have made a submission to the Honourable Minister of Information, who has escalated it to the president in terms of infrastructure acquisition and software. Also, the federal government is looking at our direction to further equip us. Our staff will be exposed to both local and international trainings. But as it stands now, we have the wherewithal to do our job, if not, all these things I’m showing, you will not see them. Trust me, there are processes in place. But even with our current capacity, we’ve done so much and that is why you will see us in every space.

Why did you withdraw your case against Meta?

We did because the case was in court for three years. We were unable to proceed with hearing. Actually, we withdrew the case to enable us to add more violations. The time we started the case, and the time we withdrew, there have been more violations. Now they are going to court to get a restraining order, and between the time they went to court and now, there have been more violations. So,  we’ll add the new violations. We are starting a new legal process now. Let’s leave it at the fact that they’ve taken us to court and the restraining order has been vacated.

ARCON’s decision to include goodwill messages as part of the contents it now vets still leaves many in the industry befuddled. What could have been the reason for vetting this category of ad, hitherto exempted from your vetting list?

Yes, before now, we weren’t vetting goodwill messages, because of the type of messages they were conveying: ‘Merry Christmas’,  ‘Happy New Year’, ‘Happy Sallah  by XYZ Limited.’ But three years ago, Sterling Bank did an advert saying: “He has risen like an Agege Bread’, referring to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know what that one caused. It was a big embarrassment. The year after, Peak Milk gave its own ad to celebrate Easter, CAN  found it offensive and wrote petition. Last year, it was  FIRS that did an advert: ‘Jesus paid your debt, not your tax’. Now, what we are saying to people is that, whatever Merry Christmas you want to say, let’s see it.

You talked about 90 per cent of the recent judgement being in favour of ARCON. You didn’t give us the details of the remaining 10 per cent that went against the agency?

Part of the 10 per cent is that we should not be specific with the fine. The judge  said the Advertising Offences Tribunal should fine the offender, but we can ask you to come and regularise your advert, and pay regularisation fee. The  Tribunal is the one empowered to fine you.

What is the compliance rate of the Advertising Industry Standard of Practice (AISOP) since setting it up in 2022?

I don’t have the figure here. But I can tell you the compliance rate is around 75 per cent. But, the remaining 25 per cent is of importance, and in the next few days, we will be going after some violators. The truth is that except issues are raised and escalated to us, we will not be able to do as much as we would have loved to do.

What is ARCON’s stance on the issue of the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN), having a chartered status?

For us, we noticed that so many duplications were in that bill, we wrote to the senate to say there were so many duplications. As at today, the law has gone through second reading, that is all I know. So, how far the Senate has gone regarding it, I don’t know. But we have put our position paper to the Honourable Minister of Information, and we have also written to the Senate Committee on Information to state our position which still remains an objection to that bill.

Why is the council for the agency yet to be constituted?

The issue is completely beyond me. But I know that the Honourable minister has written for its constitution. Again, with happenings in the last few days, I know that any moment from now they will announce a governing council for us. Firstly, few days ago, they appointed for Education, few weeks ago, it was another ministry. I know that our own ministry will soon come. We are not alone in this. NBC is there, NOA is there,  Press Council is there, NAN, VoA, and FRCN are there. In that space, we have eight agencies. But please note that the absence of a council is not an excuse for us not to work. There are two things that the law has put in place. One of these is that the minister can give a specific or general directive to ARCON. Then we also have the management in place. Beyond the two, I relate with Heads of Advertising Sectoral Group, and that is why when we’re setting up a committee, you will always see a representation of all the committees.

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