NCC PARTNERS NIGERIAN WRITERS ON ANA AT 40 CELEBRATIONS

NCC PARTNERS NIGERIAN WRITERS ON ANA AT 40 CELEBRATIONS

By Maik Otserga

The Nigerian Copyright’s Commission (NCC) has always been a good ally as far as the writer’s career in Nigeria is concerned. To this end, the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Mr Camillus Ukah could not have picked a better place to start his advocacy for partnership ahead of the grand finale of the forty years celebration of ANA in Abuja towards the end of the year. Mr Ukah was accompanied on this visit by the Vice-President, Hajia Farida Mohammed, the General Secretary, Maik Ortserga, the PRO North, Umar Yogiza Jr, and the Chairman, Abuja Chapter of ANA. On hand to support the DG in receiving the ANA team were two directors of the Commission, Vincent Oyesefo and Dauda Bitrus. This would the second visit of ANA to the Commission by the National Exco.

The ANA team was received warmly by the unassuming and deeply intellectual Director General of the Commission, Mr. John O. Asein, who affirmed that authors in Nigeria need the support of the Commission to be able to grow education through quality writing. He lamented that the rights of the author has been taken for granted in Nigeria so much that many authors no longer care about their rights, thus the collective management of authors rights is comatose. To worsen this experience, we now have pirates who are actually beginning to get very daring. He stressed the need for authors to know their rights and begin to take such rights very seriously. According to him, the 40th Anniversary celebration of the Association of Nigerian Authors is a veritable opportunity to make authors know much about their rights. He revealed that writers in this country were the first group that played a key role in the establishment of the NCC long before regulatory agencies in the film industry and the performing musical arts were set up and wondered why they are no longer taking advantage of the establishment.

Responding to the ANA president’s earlier request for support during the ANA @ 40 celebrations, the DG promised to get the NCC offices across the country to key into the celebration already on-going in ten cities. He encouraged members of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) to always use their writing in rebuilding the waning interest in the projection of our positive stories in order to give hope to the younger generation about our country. He equally advised ANA to always acknowledge what the government is doing in the area of empowering the NCC to support the creative industry and that a joint committee should be set up to make NCC know where they can be involved in the ANA @ 40 celebrations.

Mr. Asein urged the ANA leadership to send out calls for the anthology of poems “Pains and Perils of Piracy” which is expected to feature entries on copyright and the rights of the author. This anthology is expected to be sponsored by the Commission.

In her vote of thanks, ANA Vice-President, Hajia Farida Mohammed, acknowledged the Director General of NCC for being a shoulder for ANA to lean on.