By Princewill Ekwujuru

Challenges facing outdoor practitioners in Lagos seems not to have abated,  as the state government has concluded plans to handover the state’s out-of-home business to Jean Claude Decaux;    a foreign agency, to manage. Outdoor practitioners in Nigeria have over time complained of strangling regulations and high rates by states’, signage and advertising agencies.

The incumbent president of the Outdoor Advertising Association  of Nigeria, OAAN, Mr. Babatunde   Adedoyin did not have an   inkling of what may be lurking around the corner for the outdoor sub-sector in the shortest time when recently he declared that Out-of-Home advertising has become an endangered specie in Nigeria.

During an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, Adedoyin had taken  reporters through the various challenges facing the industry. Specifically, he mentioned among other things; the issue of    N1billion owed his members by Lagos State Government, multiple taxation and the outrageous payment on vacant boards in some States, especially Lagos.

“Outdoor sector has become endangered species in the country as practitioners contend with regulatory bottlenecks and harsh economy. From left, right and center, we are being bashed. Government cares less about our challenges and keep putting pressures on us, not minding the challenges we are facing as businessmen. Outdoor practitioners are not operating in isolation but within the same harsh economic environment, but government appears not to be concerned about our plight,” Adedoyin declared during the interactive session.

To add insult  to injury, a reliable source close to Lagos State Government recently confirmed that the State has concluded plans to bring in a foreign agency,  Jean Claude Decaux, to take over outdoor activities in Lagos. On further findings, it has been revealed that the agency will not come in just as a practitioner like  Scan Group, an advertising agency owned by Bharat Thakrar, a Kenyan-born Indian, three years ago.    Jean Claude Decaux, the source revealed would be a repository for the outdoor advertising business in Nigeria. What this implies is that the agency will serve as both a regulator and practitioner as it will be in charge of site allocation to other practitioners.

The question many observers are asking include: What has become of the industry reform which was rolled out three years ago to spell out the percentage of ownership that can be accrued to a foreigner who intends to invest in the industry? What is the fate of local practitioners and thousands of Nigerians who are employed by the industry? Is APCON concerned only about creative agencies or has the regulatory body gone to slumber?