Foreign content costs local advert industry, ARCON plans law enforcement
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Production of Nigerian advertising and marketing communication materials abroad costs the country more than N120 billion yearly, says the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) in a clarion call to enforce local content.
ARCON Director General Olalekan Fadolapo said the practice costs jobs and retards the development of the advertising industry, citing the negative impact on the effort by Abuja to create more jobs and grow an inclusive economy.
He reiterated Section 8(1)(I) of ARCON Act 2022 empowers ARCON to preserve local content and use of indigenous skills in advertising, advertisement, and marketing communication materials.
He disclosed ARCON would enforce the Act to ensure a minimum 75 per cent local content in such materials, insisting models and voice-over artistes must be Nigerians, and the materials produced in the country as well reflect its ambience.
The production crew may include foreigners but “Nigerians and Nigerian organisations must partake in the production,” Foladapo explained in a statement, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), via The PUNCH.
He argued the policy would enable Nigerians and the economy to benefit from an industry that enjoys tremendous local patronage, and is on course to create more than 500,000 jobs yearly with a positive multiplier effect on all sectors.
Foladapo enthused the new policy would both attract investment to the advertising industry and discourage capital flight.
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Fake scholarships luring Nigerians into sex work abroad
Nigerians were warned in August that human traffickers are cashing in on their desire to emigrate by using fake scholarships and jobs advertorials to lure and trap especially the young into prostitution in foreign countries.
National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Director General Fatima Waziri-Azi raised the alarm over increasing numbers of such promising advertorials being used to force people into prostitution.
She spoke in Abuja at the start of activities marking the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, where she disclosed traffickers force their victims to take oaths and also take their nude videos to blackmail them online.
To underscore the problem, acting International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Chief of Mission Prestage Murima said the IOM has coordinated the return of more than 27,000 Nigerian migrants from 82 countries since 2017.
“There is an increase in online trafficking. For instance, last month I interacted with a human rights organisation located in North Cyprus which is a country that is only recognised by Turkey and not other EU countries,” Waziri-Azi said.
“The organisation shared with me that North Cyprus is a country of about 300,000 people and out of the number about 45,000 are Africans living there and out of the 45,000, 25,000 are Nigerians and most of the young people among them are trafficked to North Cyprus for fake jobs and fake scholarships.”