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| Tony Okoroji |
Lawyers
across the country have been called to demonstrate courage in the battle
against the factors that have militated against the progress of the Nigerian
nation as well as ensure that they stand firm in promoting the values that that
will see Nigeria through its present challenges.
Chairman of
the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Chief Tony Okoroji who made the call
while addressing a large gathering of members of the Nigerian Bar Association
at the 2016 Law Week of the Lagos Branch of the NBA which took place at MUSON
Centre, Onikan recently, said that “no great nation in the history of mankind
has been built by cowards and Nigeria will not be an exception.” He observed
that it is beginning to appear that Nigerian lawyers who used to form a bulwark
against corruption and abuse of power have gone cold.
Themed,
“Judicial Independence and the Democratic Process”, the COSON Chairman was insistent
that for the Nigerian economy to rebound in a sustained manner, there needs to
be a fundamental change in the nation’s mindset so that it is recognized at all
levels of policy making that the economy of brick and mortar is gone and the
knowledge economy has taken over. According to him, respect for
intellectual property rights is critical for the knowledge economy to thrive
and lawyers have a significant role in ensuring that the respect for the rights
of creative and innovative people become part of Nigerian culture so as to
release the latent energy of thousands of creative and innovative Nigerians.
The former
president of PMAN listed the people at the top of the world economy today –
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, J.K. Rolling, etc., and in each case observed that
they are engaged in activities centred around the Knowledge economy. Asked
Okoroji, “Do you think any of these persons would have acquired the enormous wealth
they are associated with if they were operating in a Nigerian environment where
the abuse of Intellectual Property rights is the norm?”
Chief
Okoroji pointed at the significant progress COSON has made in so short a time
saying that one of the key reasons for the progress is the robust and
continuous use of the law courts to enforce intellectual property rights.
According to him, just six years ago, nobody gave COSON a chance, yet within
the short period, COSON has collected and distributed hundreds of millions of
Naira in copyright royalties to music copyright owners in Nigeria. In his
words, “in a democracy, going to court is the one way to forestall the resort
to machetes, brute force and anarchy. At COSON, when we go to court, we do not
see the defendant as an enemy. We just believe that there is someone with whom
we have different points of view and we have not been able to harmonize those
views. We therefore take the facts and the law to a judge who is a trained
independent arbiter to intervene. I consider the fact that we have yet to lose
one case as evidence that our strategy is right’’
Chief
Okoroji asked the lawyers in the audience to advice their clients involved in
intellectual property infringement that the landscape is changing rapidly and
the cost of intellectual property infringement can now be quite expensive. Said
Okoroji, “the brazen theft of a person’s intellectual property is also
corruption.”
The event
was attended by several Senior Advocates.
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