Nigeria: No Music Day 2019 sings tune of unity

The 2019 edition, the 10th of its kind, ran under the theme No Compromise in Making the Music Pay and saw the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), which is at the forefront of implementing the campaign, call for unity among members of the creative industry to not only protect their works but also ensure peaceful coexistence.

“Creative people in Nigeria cannot afford to keep quiet at this time," COSON chairperson Tony Okoroji said. "Our musicians, writers, actors, broadcasters and others within our creative space must come out from wherever we are hiding to save the Nigerian nation from being dismembered with the attendant unimaginable cost. Whether we want to accept it or we want to hide from it, the unity of our nation is presently seriously threatened. We must confront the deep religious, tribal and sectional distrust resulting in continuous bloodletting the kind of which we have never previously witnessed.

"In the battle to save other people in the African continent faced with the kind of horror we are marching into, the voice of the Nigerian creative community was very loud. We must today rediscover that voice to save the soul of our nation. At COSON, our members are very proud that we have built a strong institution which has become an important national movement with strong roots that can withstand pressure. We have shown clearly that we value our independence and that we are prepared to defend it. It is on record that we have always subjected COSON to the regulations of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) and we will continue to do so. For the good of the Nigerian nation, we wish to continue to work closely with the NCC”.

COSON CEO Chinedu Chukwuji said that as usual the 2019 edition drove home the essence of No Music Day by getting several Nigerian TV and radio stations to observe the day by discussing piracy and the need to respect intellectual works.

“We took the campaign to the radio and TV stations across the country and urged them to maintain particular time belts on their stations when issues about copyright violation are discussed," he Chukwuji. "Many complied like they have done in the past. We also got a number of artists to launch online campaigns against violation of rights. We had Waje, Azeezat and others doing short videos to preach the ideals of No Music Day."

No Music Day is traceable to a historic week in 2009 when Nigerian artists drawn from various genres embarked on a weeklong hunger strike staged in front of the National Theatre in Lagos as a result of devastatings levels of intellectual property abuse in the country.