Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) has filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Lagos seeking damages running into N8 billion from the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) for what it described as the “undemocratic, unlawful and unconstitutional suspension” of its approval and operating license.
Also, the collecting society is claiming another N2 billion “for the significant loss of reputation and goodwill suffered by the plaintiff and arising from the massive publicity sustained by the NCC against COSON” following the suspension of its operating license and the unlawful directive to banks to freeze its accounts.
In its statement of claim in suit no. FHC/L/CS/425/2020, COSON pleads that it is a fact that the Copyright Act in section 39 (2) gives the defendant the power to approve collecting societies, but nowhere under the law is the NCC given the power to suspend, revoke or in any way restrict the approval given to a collecting society or even embark on an audit of a collecting society or direct the freezing/restriction of the bank accounts of a collecting society without a court order.
Among others, COSON alleged that the NCC has become a ‘monster’ deploying the wide powers it has unlawfully assumed to decimate the stakeholders it was set up to protect, and that in its actions, the Commission has been the lawmaker, accuser, judge and the jury in its own case without COSON being offered any opportunity for fair hearing.
At a world press conference held at COSON House, Ikeja, Lagos days before the suit was filed, COSON called for the immediate resignation of the Director General of NCC, Mr. John Asein.
“The Nigerian Copyright Commission has brought shame to the Nigerian nation. We therefore call on the federal government to call the Nigerian Copyright Commission to order. We demand that the Buhari administration order the Nigerian Copyright Commission to publish a bold and unreserved apology to the thousands of members of COSON, the entire Nigerian creative community and the international copyright family for the terrible misuse and abuse of power, and to make appropriate restitution to COSON.”