By Onozure Dania

Lagos — The Intellectual Property Law Association of Nigeria (IPLAN) and other stakeholders have urged the National Assembly to reform the copyright laws  to ensure it meets all the necessary needs in the creative industries. The call was made during the association’s annual general meeting and pre AGM lecture with the Theme: “Intellectual Property Rights and National Development,” which was held  in Lagos.

Speaking at the event, the Chairman of the occasion, former Commissioner, Nigerian Law Reform Commission, Professor Egerton Uvieghara,  said that the members of the National Assembly have failed to perform optimally in their legislative functions, stating that unless lawyers and members of the public engage them, they may not take their legislative duty seriously.

He said: “Members of the National Assembly do more of oversight functions than law making. They are spending our monies more than they are giving us and they do not seem to worry at all. Many of them are not doing the job the constitution has placed on them. Many of them are my students but don’t even know what they were taught in school. We cannot be talking about development without Intellectual Property put in proper perspective.”

In his welcome address, the out gone president of the association, former dean, School of Law and Security Studies, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun state, Professor Bankole Sodipo, said the focus of the workshop is to highlights some of the works that have been done in various sectors of Intellectual Property. Mr Sola Dosunmu, a staff of British American Tobacco, spoke on Plain Packaging Product  Intellectual Property Rights while Mr. John Asein, an Intellectual Property Management Consultant presented a paper on “An Appraisal of the Draft Amendment to the Copyright Act.”

Mr. Asein in his presentation identified non-committal of industry players to the reform process; weak advocacy and competing national issues; slow pace of the legislative process; low level of awareness amongst stakeholders; non ratification of the international treaties as some of the challenges encountered in the process of passage of the bill stressing that unless the bill is passed into law, it will soon become stale.

He  therefore urged stakeholders and copyright interest groups to play more visible roles in the formulation and direction of copyright policies noting, that Section on Business Law and IPLAN must work closely with the Nigerian Copyright Commission, Ministry of Justice and the legislature for a well-coordinated reform process.