“We started from half of a table,” he says, a smile playing on his lips as he reminisces this Monday afternoon at his swank off Allen Avenue office, Ikeja, Lagos. “One of the junior lawyers would be using half the table, I would be using the other half. Gradually, I graduated from using half a table to a full table.” And he was the only staff! It was not until the third year that he got a youth corper to assist him. Together they continued the job and as the operation expanded they recruited a full time staff. Glad about the progress he was making, their benefactor gave them an entire room and a second one when they began acquiring equipment. “Things started taking shape,” he says. “We started gathering experience and expertise. From there, we moved to a 3-bedroom flat office in Surulere in Lagos mainland. We employed more staff, got more equipment and continued to expand our operations.”

But for Mayo Ayilaran, it was and still is a bumpy ride. The young Mayo fresh from the University of Ife now Obafemi Awolowo University with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science was introduced to the world of Copyright by Chief Alfred Alabi, a chartered accountant who also at the time represented Mechanical Copyright Protection Society ,MCPS of the United Kingdom in Nigeria. He had told the young man: “Look, this is a business that is succeeding very well in other parts of the world but we have not been able to get somebody here to hold it forth as a professional.” He had nodded, thankful for the opportunity and braced himself for the challenges ahead. What he did not know was how tasking, how tedious, how exerting these would be. But first, he had to meet the man…

Mayo Ayilaran

The urbane lawyer and agent of Performing Rights Society, PRS, United Kingdom, Mr.Fatai Oladale Giwa ushered him into his ever busy Law Chambers in Lagos Island with a smile. He had barely taken his seat when some files were thrust at him. “I couldn’t make head or tail from the files,” he says. But he knew if he were to make any head way, he not only has to understand the contents of the files but the inner workings of the copyright system.

He learnt fast, soaking up the history of copyright administration in Nigeria and even going ahead to do a comparative analysis with the rest of the world. Attached to PRS, he studied under experienced hands and had surfeit of books to guide him. Slowly but surely, he began to have a feel of how copyright administration really works. He also learnt a lot on the feet of Giwa. “Most of the principles of Law from the Law of Contract, Law of Tort, Constitutional Law and so on, I was already grounded in while I was with Giwa. He would also give us documents to read so we can give our opinion,” Ayilaran recalls. It was no surprise that years later he had to go for a Masters degree in Legal Studies at Lagos State University “to improve my perspective and view of the world and to help me to be more objective in my decisions and pragmatic in whatever I do,” he says now. But his happiest day at the time was when he received a cheque of N74 as royalty from UTC! “When I received the cheque, I said so truly this thing can bring money,” he recalls. “From N74, I started getting cheques in the region of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Naira.”

In recasting how Musical Copyright Society Nigeria, MCSN came to be, Ayilaran credits Giwa for facilitating its incorporation with the support of PRS and MCPS. Giwa had been approached by music maestros like late Adeolu Akinsanya, I.K. Dairo, Ojoge Daniel and Roy Chicago that it was time they became members of “our own Nigerian organization.” It was at this early stage that Ayilaran came into the picture as the musicians said they could not run it. Besides providing the initial office accommodation, Ayilaran says Giwa did much for Nigerian musicians.

“He got a lot of them before the formation of MCSN to join PRS. He processed their forms and all of them were earning their royalties directly from London in Pounds Sterling while Nigeria was not paying anything to the international community,” he says.” So when I came in it was a relief for Giwa that at long last he could face his Law practice without PRS breathing down his neck asking why he has not collected royalties from broadcast organizations in Nigeria. He gave me all the support. Indeed, he was spending his own money to get this thing going contrary to what some people believed that he was using it as his private estate. Nobody owns a company limited by guarantee. He loved the arts and wanted to help and he did help,” he says.

But the task of growing the nascent MCSN rested on the young shoulders of Ayilaran. And for the first four years (1984-1988), he was able to expand its operations exponentially within Nigeria and more importantly established world-wide relationships with sister organisations and societies. “We were already within the family of International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, CISAC and International Bureau of Organisations Managing Mechanical Rights, BIEM. So we had sort of integrated into the copyright world before the Nigerian Copyright Council, NCC, as it was then known was established,” Ayilaran says.

So when news filtered in that government was setting up the regulatory agency-NCC- to oversee copyright matters in Nigeria, the copyright administrator was very happy.”We were expecting that yes, now we will have a government agency that we can relate with that would help us to launch out more. A government agency that will create an enabling environment for us to achieve more than what we have on ground and push for higher heights,” Ayilaran says. Bubbling with excitement he led the management team of MCSN to congratulate and welcome the officials of NCC at their then National Theatre office as soon as they settled in.

Nothing therefore prepared Ayilaran for what happened next. “They began by saying that they have not approved any society, he recalls, bewilderment still evident in his voice. “It was through this that they brought this idea of approval or registration of a collecting society. When the argument was getting too much, we now said, bring your registration guidelines,” he says. What MCSN learnt along the way was puzzling. NCC had written to other organisations that as the agency with jurisdiction over copyright matters in Nigeria, it has not recognised or registered any collecting society and when it does it will notify them. And so between 1989 and 1992 copyright administration in Nigeria was in limbo.

By the time the guidelines finally came, there was every reason for Ayilaran to smile again- they had all that was required. With glee, they applied, supplying all the documents requested for. But when the verdict came, it was a brand new organisation called, Performing Mechanical Rights Society, PMRS that got NCC’s nod to operate at the expense of MCSN. Inquiries on the quirk development later revealed that PMRS has some staff of NCC on its board of directors! MCSN then wrote a petition to the relevant government authority on the abuse of office by officials of NCC and the imperative for justice to be done. On how he felt when their approval was denied, Ayilaran says:”I was outraged. We saw naked injustice being meted out to our organisation. I couldn’t imagine how someone could be so negative simply because he is lucky to be employed by government to supervise that area of business operation.”

With the authorities foot dragging on the petition and to save its business from imminent collapse, MCSN’s management went to court and it was given a window to operate as a legally recognised body. This marked the beginning of a chain of court cases instituted by MCSN to protect its rights prompting some people to dub the chief executive, Ayilaran, a litigant.

“They are wrong to describe me as a litigant,” he protests.”For you to say someone is a litigant, it means somebody who will go to court at the slightest provocation. We only go to court as the last option not the first option. That is why we don’t lose our cases easily. We would engage you in discussion, engage you in negotiation, engage you in communication. It is when we are left with no avenue but go to court that we do. And don’t forget that in matters of rights, you have to fight for it and get it…”

Reprieve came to MCSN on May 6, 2005 when a new Director- General at NCC, Mr. Adebambo Adewopo, an academic widely known as an apostle of the liberalisation of collective administration in Nigeria granted it license to operate. Of this, Ayilaran says: “When you have laboured too much for something and you have suffered too much for it, when you get it, it doesn’t matter to you anymore.” Still, it was a relief as they were able to operate without NCC breathing down their neck for the first time in many years. But the previously government approved society, PMRS, would not allow peace to reign and pressure was mounted on the government to remove Adewopo and revoke the license granted MCSN.

Curiously, the Director General was suspended and MCSN’s license withdrawn in October 2005. The approval had lasted for only five months! Ayilaran recalls that MCSN saw this as an affront and mounted a massive campaign to reinstate Adewopo, insisting that he did nothing wrong by approving the organization. MCSN also involved other stakeholders in the campaign. Before long, Adewopo was reinstated. But instead of revalidating the license of MCSN as promised, he asked them to be patient with him. Says Ayilaran: “Adewopo called me and said, ‘cool it. You know NCC has just been moved to the Ministry of Justice. Let us settle down under the new Ministry. We would deal with it.’ That our approval is a matter of course. So we believed him. We took him for his words. But weeks ran into months, months into years…”

By 2010, the bubble burst when a new round of registration promoted by Adewopo called Collective Management Organisations, CMOs, sailed past MCSN in spite of complying with the guidelines. In a twist of fate, the organisation that was approved has on its board those who championed the suspension of Adewopo in 2005! In the same vein, the DG turned full circle to become an advocate of a sole collecting society! Ayilaran is yet to come to terms with how Adewopo, aware of MCSN’s international affiliation, large repertoire of music, huge membership and technical expertise since he once acted as their lawyer and even won them a landmark case, could sidestep them and license an organisation formed only in November 2009. ”Till date nobody has been able to tell us why MCSN is being treated this way,” he says.

“My feeling is that they want to kill the Nigerian spirit in us. I believe so much in this country. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. But there are a few elements who happen to be in the corridors of power that are causing the problem in this country.”

He believes a surgical operation is required in the copyright sector to sanitise it. “People are engaging in deals, wrong deals,” he asserts. “There is heavy corruption going on in the copyright sector. We have written not less than three petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC. Nothing has been done. ICPC came here one day to verify the petitions. They asked series of questions, told us they would come back. Till now we have not heard from them. Neither have we received a final letter that they have concluded their investigation and found that our allegations are frivolous…It is not only us that are losing. Government itself is losing in taxes. And until government goes to the root, identify these people, give them appropriate punishment, there may be no development in the creative industry.”

His face lightens up now as you ask him what drives him. “I think it is the grace of God,” he replies.”The spirit of God drives me. I know that. And I’m surrounded by beautiful people. People who encourage me. People who fire my imagination. People who challenge me.” But does he see hope as things stand? You ask. “I see hope,” he says. “If I don’t see hope I’d be dead. I see hope because we are not in this for the sake of dying or not winning. Great people, great creators are behind us. That is why we cannot afford to sit back and say we are not going to fight on. They are there talking to us, encouraging us- the real creators, the real composers, the real authors. When they are encouraging us, why would there not be hope?”