When former Information Minister, Patricia Akwashiki, visited the Advertising Practitioners’ Council of Nigeria (APCON) as part of her last acts in office, the Registrar, Garba Kankarofi, reminded her of the challenges APCON faces.
Kankarofi recounts the challenges to Senior Correspondent,
GODDIE OFOSE.
Challenges and achievements
The biggest challenge is the ability to carry stakeholders along. We have board members who are the policy makers, and our job is only to implement whatever policy they bring up.
I was very lucky to have worked with an industry icon like Lolu Akinwumi, the former Chairman of APCON. Now we have a new Chairman who is also well known in the industry, Udeme Ufot.
They are practitioners, they are industry icons and they have been around. And they have acceptability in the industry.
Another constraint is that of illegal practitioners, including foreigners, and my inability to monitor what is going on in the media. The media is very vast now and I need money to buy technology.
The coming of digitalisation means that we cannot achieve much success without digitalisation and without our ability to buy equipment to monitor each and every one of them.
My other challenge is the misunderstanding with newspaper proprietors. They are members of this Council, but they refuse to take a seat in Council and to adhere to Council guidelines for reasons best known to them.
But we are working with the new leadership of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) to see how we can work things out, although we have a case in court.
With new administration, we hope and believe they are still our friends; we respect and appreciate them and show them that we do.
For me personally, the biggest and most frustrating aspect of our challenges is the Nigerian attitude towards regulation and self-regulation. If you don’t respect your country’s laws, I don’t know which country whose laws you will respect.
Non-Nigerians come in and take us for granted, a lot of Nigerians are being sacked from various positions they could appropriately manage and are being replaced by foreigners.
This is a concern to us, and again, the bigger challenge I have right now is that agencies working for multinationals are being jettisoned and the multinationals are going to buy media direct.
This is unprofessional conduct, and the whole spirit of corporate licence is being lost.
Sanction against illegal practices
This is where I need the attorney general of the federation and justice minister to come to our aid. Our laws do not give us ample powers to arrest defaulters and due process law is not something everybody can understand, and there are things to be done.
This is one of the things the new Council which will be meeting on July 1 must look into – how to plug the loopholes in due process, fair hearing and bias as embedded in the law, how to deal with them.
Whatever case we raise right now could be taken to court where it would easily be quashed.
Gazetted corporate licences
Within the 18 months that we had some imbroglio at the Council when some politicians were appointed and the matter was brought before former President Goodluck Jonathan, he graciously reversed himself and appointed a sole administrator for us, and for 18 months we have had a sole administrator.
For now, I cannot prosecute anybody; there are legal frameworks in place. We have statutory committees legally constituted, but they were not in place. It is not for me to take people to court, it is the committees’ responsibility, and these committees are populated by people within the industry.
It is the same people who would complain to me, I would only aid the process. I am not a prosecutor, mind you; it is on behalf of those committees that I act. So, there is a gazette in place, but even the Council is yet to meet formally until July 1.
It has been inaugurated and the various sectorial groups have made their representations within these committees, but the chairman, unfortunately, is bereaved.
The inauguration of these various committees would, God willing, take place before mid-July. I am sure that by July you will see the fireworks, because all legal instruments are there. Unless we don’t want to work.
Impact of previous ministers on APCON
It is wrong to say former information ministers didn’t do anything. For instance, Labaran Maku and Nurudeen Mohammed were the ones who stood their ground that illegality must not be allowed.
If Maku had inaugurated the political Council, of cause, we could have been in court and only God knows when we could have got out of that court.
Mohammed was committed to sorting out the APCON Council issues and he did. There are many good things these ministers did, but they were equally handicapped.
Nigeria is big and resources are also needed by many other organs of government. The fact that we regulate a fairly good number of practitioners does not give us the right to go to them and say, give us money.
We cannot live on hand-outs; we cannot live by gratis, no. So, honestly, I am telling you, every minister who has served, from Dora Akunyili to Labaran Maku, to Edem Duke to Nurudeen Mohammed, all of them understood our problems.
That is why today we are in a favourable disposition with the government and I can assure you that, God willing, with the incoming government a lot more would be achieved.
Breaches and practitioners’ role
Before Lolu Akinwunmi’s period, breaches by all sectorial groups were about 90 per cent, but today they have gone down to barely 25 per cent.
Criminality is a perpetual thing, you cannot stop it. But don’t also forget that these 18 months without a chairman has created problems.
Foreigners have come in, taken briefs and gone out, and you Nigerians don’t even exercise your rights as consumers, as viewers, as listeners to complain to me. Foreign models are being paraded all over the place and little is being done to check them.
We have a small penalty of N100,000 but they can afford to pay that. Unless I have a complaint from the public about this, I don’t have the machinery and capacity to monitor each and everybody. It’s not possible.
That’s why I am seeking for the government’s attention to give me digital equipment that can enable me monitor everybody from every angle and from everywhere. Unless that is done, our handicap remains.
But I can assure you that except for newspaper proprietors with whom we have some problems, I am glad to tell you that the last elections have taught a lesson.
Today, take N1 billion to Channels TV; they will not take your money if you don’t go through the due process as required by law.
Yes, others may be hungry, but I assure you that at least private radio and television stations are doing wonderfully well. They are being responsive and duly accepting due process.
Government media as rule breakers
Those issues were discussed at ministerial management meetings and things have gone from bad to better. At least the new management at the FRCN (Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria) has really helped a lot, and we are working together to see that all those breaches are minimised.
The problem with the NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) is with political advertising, and the problem is with state stations, not with the national network.
The excuse given was that they needed money to buy diesel, which I am fully aware of. But when they begin to exercise some restraint the right thing would be done. Most private stations have done it, why is it only the federal agencies that are not willing because some guys believe that taking illegal money will make them rich?
Weaknesses of APCON and breaches
That APCON is weak is a perception. Right now I have made my report to my minister. You can breach the law probably because the penalty is about N500,000 and if you make N25 million for a breach you can afford to pay APCON and NBC (Nigerian Broadcasting Commission) and pocket the rest.
This is why we told them that there are inherent weaknesses in the law. The penalties are not punitive enough.
If the NBC withdraws licences, it is not only the NBC that would be respected, we who regulate content, particularly advertising content, would also get some respect. It would make people do a lot of hard thinking before they dare to breach the law.
Happily now we are working with the NBC, a joint committee has been established and endorsed, and what remains is for the APCON Council to endorse the agreement and the new council of the NBC to endorse it.
When that is done, we would be the team to beat. By the time the NBC and APCON are strengthened all these shenanigans would stop.
