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The Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria (PMAN) has accused Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, of intellectual property theft.
A statement shared on the association’s Facebook page, said the recently held ‘Creative Industry Financing Conference’ contained ideas from a proposal it had earlier submitted to the minister.
According to PMAN, the proposal was entitled ‘Bar Coding Technology for the Creative Industry in Nigeria’.
The proposal which which highlighted plans on how to improve the Nigerian entertainment was handed to the minister during a meeting led by the body’s president, Pretty Okafor, on August 5, 2016.
The association said the proposal contained ideas on how to improve the creative industry and generate over N15 trillion revenue for the government.
PMAN alleged that the recommendations in its proposal were what the government went ahead to implement under the guise of the ‘Creative Industry Financing Conference’.
Ifeanyi Ejiofor, counsel to PMAN, in a five-page petition, said, “Though the conference was deceptively tagged “creative industry financing conference”, it is our client’s firm belief that the conference was held in full implementation of our client’s original brain child and ideas as clearly highlighted in their respective presentation of 5th August, 2016 and Action Plan of 18th August, 2016, all in the possession of the Ministry of Information and Culture. Our client viewed this action as a grave infringement of their intellectual property rights and dubious conversion of their brain child ideas and concept, originating from painstaking professional study, research and investigation that gulped them over N500,000,” the petition read.
PMAN has given the minister an ultimatum of 72 hours to desist from continuing with the plans in the proposal or be sued for violation of intellectual property.