On this September 1, celebrated across the country as “No Music Day”, Chief Tony Okoroji, Chairman, Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), delivered the traditional “No Music Day” live broadcast from COSON House in Ikeja, streamed nationally and internationally.
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Chief Okoroji, in the broadcast, touched on several issues bedeviling the country and posited that they are all rooted in what has become a sordid national culture of corruption and flagrant disrespect of the people in power for the rule of law.
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In the broadcast, the celebrated former President of PMAN and a foremost fighter for the rights of creative people in Africa, called on those close to Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State to tell the governor that it is not weakness to obey court orders.
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Said Chief Okoroji, “A few weeks ago, the Board of COSON which I chair, issued a statement asking the Government of Cross River State to obey the Orders of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal and pay the debt of 500 million Naira awarded to COSON against the state government since 2018.
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“Observed the Board, ‘the Cross River State Government is displaying the kind of recklessness and lawlessness a democratically elected government should never contemplate. We are not asking Governor Bassey Otu for a gift or a grant. We are asking him to obey court orders. We have followed due process. He is not above the law and has a duty to obey the Orders of two of Nigeria’s most prominent courts, the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal’.
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Chief Okoroji reiterated that on Monday, May 14, 2018, in Calabar, the Federal High Court delivered a landmark judgment in which it awarded the sum of Five Hundred Million Naira to COSON against the Cross River State Government for copyright infringement at the Calabar Carnival. The court went further to grant a perpetual injunction against the organizers of the Calabar Carnival from further infringement of copyright in the musical works in the repertoire of COSON deployed at the carnival.
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According to him, the judgment redefined the place of creativity in Nigeria and said it clearly that no one is above the law, including our governments, and no one has the right to publicly deploy the intellectual property of free citizens without authorization. According to the frontline nationalist, the judgment is a huge victory for every creative person in Nigeria. He reiterated that not satisfied with the judgment, the Cross River State Government went to the Court of Appeal and after about five years, still lost to COSON.
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In the words of Chief Tony Okoroji: “We spent about ten years in court seeking and obtaining the historic judgments. It is now more than two years since the Court of Appeal decision. Those close to Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State should tell the governor that it is not weakness to obey court orders. It is his duty to uphold the rule of law. He should know that all the investment in the judiciary in his state will mean nothing if his legacy is the disobedience of court orders. Someone should remind him that he will not be governor forever. A day will come when his well-being may depend on the obedience of the order of a court”.
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FOR COSON
Mandu Uwem Umoh
Senior Communication Executive