THE CORONATION OF A VIRUS

Tell me, who could have known less than three months ago when we all shouted "Happy New Year" across the world that we were welcoming a year in which nothing would make sense anymore, a year in which the world as we  know it will no longer exist? Happy new year?

Welcome everyone to the third world war! This is not the cold war. It is not a war between capitalism and socialism. It is not between the conservatives and the liberals or the fascists and the democrats. This is not the east against the west or the north taking on the south. This is not even the breakout of the simmering war between the few outrageously rich and the billions who are hungry and dreadfully poor.

In this war, all the massive nuclear weapons, the inter-continental ballistic missiles and the submarines loaded with killer war heads in which the world has invested zillions of dollars, pounds and euros, are useless. Your AK 47 is like toothpick in this war.

Tell me, how can Amotokun, IPOB, the Delta Avengers or even Boko Haram protect any of us against this enemy?

Today, across the world, schools, businesses, sports stadiums, bars, restaurants and everything in between are shut down. Can you imagine that the premiership is frozen and Liverpool fans who thought they had won the premiership for the first time in their history are wondering what is going on again? Come rain, come sunshine, the Olympic Games had never been postponed for one day. The games scheduled for July will not hold.. All kinds of events that have been intricately planned and eagerly awaited have gone up in smoke.

My son, Tony Jnr and his beautiful heartthrob, Andrea must be wondering what happened to the wedding they have planned and planned for months with every dollar and every cent they could save. I know how much my missus worked on the colours, gowns, shoes, flowers, cakes, shapes and all the many other things that mothers worry about at such events. April, the scheduled month, is by the corner, the wedding, my friends, is blowing in the wind!    

The streets are empty and everybody is on the run because the enemy does not care who you are. When I say everybody is on the run, I mean everybody! This enemy does not distinguish between the vulcanizer on my street and the almighty Aliko Dangote. Boris Johnson, the tough talking British Prime Minister, is in hiding and so is his Health Secretary and Prince Charles, the next in line to the British throne. The big boys of Abuja are running to Lagos in search of what medical care they can get. The international airports are shut and all the expensive private jets are of no use.

This enemy does not care whether you are Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. All churches in Rome, the residence of the Pope and the headquarters of the gargantuan Catholic faith are shut down. It is not just in Rome, all churches everywhere including my native Nigeria are shut down and so are all mosques and all temples. The big and fast-talking pastors with answers to everything have also been unmasked. They have no answer to this. They too are on the run.

The enemy does not care whether you are black or white. It majestically walks the streets taking on all comers and wrecking all economies. Have you ever seen stock markets around the world nosedive as they have done the last few weeks? It is almost like the indices are also on the run trying to hide under the table.

Who knew that America could in one day sign a cheque for two trillion dollars? Two trillion dollars!!!  Wow!!! To be honest, I did not know such money exists in this world. Two trillion dollars!!! Imagine what that kind of money can do to change the entire continent of Africa. You see that they were hiding all that money until the enemy forced them to cough it out. Watch. Very soon, they will cough out some more.  While America is writing cheques in trillions of dollars, Nigeria wants to spend a miserly 25 million dollars to fight the enemy. When I saw it on CNN, I almost puked! Giant of Africa! Na wah!

Have we learnt anything from the coronation of this virus, an enemy none of us can see, an enemy we are running from without knowing where it is, a tiny virus that has become king of the world? What the present situation tells us is that the things we attach so much importance to do not really matter. When push comes to shove, our status, our wealth, our tribe, our work, our religion, our political party and everything else really count for little. Did I say little? They count for nothing! All the hate in this world, the loathing and the killing are terribly misplaced.

If we survive the third world was, the war of the Coronavirus, would we learn to love each other with the realization that we are all children of the same God? I wish.

See you next week.    

WHEN DID COWARDICE BECOME A VIRTUE?

During the week, it was announced that COSON has gone to the Federal High Court with a 10 Billion Naira lawsuit against the Nigerian Copyright Commission seeking the court's interpretation of the Copyright Act.

The concept of the lawsuit appears to have received significant support within the creative community and among those who understand the law. Not surprising, the perennial Nay Sayers are on overdrive on social media calling me all kinds of names with their very poor language and poor syntax. It is all so laughable.

Can you imagine what would happen if COSON got 10 Billion Naira awarded to it as damages by the courts? Who do you think would be the first to rush to COSON House with demands on how "our money" would be shared? It will be the same Nay Sayers!   

COSON was not built on being meek and mild. For much of my adult life, I have traversed the courts in Nigeria to earn respect for the rights of creative people in our nation. I am proud of that record.

I know that there are people who will never enter a court room till they die. They are scared like hell of the courts! It is understandable when you think that a judge can sentence someone to death and the person is executed in broad day light and his life ended.  A very young man sitting as a judge can order that an old man forfeits everything he thought belonged to him. Immediately, that becomes a command that must be obeyed. Have you ever been visited by court bailiffs who wake you up before dawn and begin to seize your belongings? Don't listen to anybody who tells you that the law does not work. It does!

I went to court simultaneously against nine broadcast stations to get the broadcast industry in Nigeria to respect the rights of musicians to have their content paid for. I went to court to have MTN, the communication mogul, pay for music content on its platform. I went to court against the Cross River State Government because of the abuse of music content in the popular Calabar Carnival. By the way, we got judgment to the tune of half a billion naira. I have gone to court more times in Nigeria than I can remember.

No great institution in human history has been led by a coward. Cowardice is not a virtue. The day COSON begins to be led by a coward, I am sorry, it will be over.

Have you noticed that in the disagreements in COSON, nobody has slapped anyone? There has been no boxing or wrestling of any type. Nobody has thrown a chair at anyone. There has been no scratching or kicking. Oh! there has been a lot of social media noise but no violence whatsoever. We have depended on the men in wig and gown to go to court and argue our case. That is why COSON continues to work and those who thought COSON would die are surprised. Real strength is not found in kick boxing but on your intellect.

Despite the social media noise, we are not at war with the NCC as an institution. We are clearly unhappy with the way the place is being run. We have gone to court because it is our belief that the system will work better if the limits of everyone's power is determined. That cannot be a bad thing.

There are people who think that we should be afraid of the NCC because they are our "regulators" No! We should respect the NCC and that will only happen if the NCC leadership conducts itself in a way that it is deserving of respect. That cannot happen when there is so much pilfering going on in the place.

With respect to Section 39 of the Copyright Act, I will not discuss it because the matter is in court. I just want to remind people that I am not an ignoramus on the subject. With all humility, no one in Nigeria can claim knowledge of Section 39 of the Copyright Act better than the great former chairman of the NCC, Prof. Egerton Uvieghara and myself. Between the two of us and one Bayo Aiyegbusi who acted as our secretary, we drafted that piece of legislation on behalf of the NCC Governing Board and it was sent to the appropriate authority and promulgated into law without one comma removed. I know the section.

It appears to me that some people are scared that the courts will soon burst their bubble. Nobody should be worried because if we do things right, everyone benefits eventually.

Do you still think that the law does not work? I ask every COSON member to stay tuned.

Please take every precaution you can against the corona virus. It is not a joke.

See you next week.

GET READY FOR MY TRIAL UNDER THE CYBERCRIME LAW!

Any moment from now, the Nigerian Copyright Commission will organize a big press conference or issue a press release accusing me and COSON of trying to bring down Mr John Asein, their Director-General alleged to be neck deep in serial corruption. They will tell you that we have declared war on Mr. Asein who is doing 'a very good job" because we do not want him to 'audit' COSON.

They will not answer the weighty allegations made against Mr Asein. Did he do or did he not do the things he has been accused of? For instance, did he illegally continue to collect salary from the federal government after he had retired from service? Did he continue to sign cheques on behalf of REPRONIG, a CMO regulated by the NCC, long after becoming DG of NCC? In other words, was he heading the regulator and the regulated organizations at the same time? As a public officer, was John Asein the Director of a private company, something expressly forbidden by the Public Service Rules?

I can bet you that at the NCC, they will not see the bewildering conflict of interest or the stunning array of misdeeds fuelled by greed, Mr. Asein is alleged to have soaked himself in. I will not be surprised if I am accused of going after Mr. John Asein because he does not come from my village or because I badly want his job or because I want a contract which he did not deliver.

I have no doubt that a juju man has been engaged by his friends to get Mr. Asein out of the 'mess' and some prayer warriors have been employed to pray ceaselessly that I contract the coronavirus and leave Mr. Asein alone to continue to do his 'very good job'.

Unfortunately, this is how low our country has sunk.

I will be the last person to publicly accuse anyone of doing something wrong when I know that he has not done so. I have gone to court many-many times to defend my name against false accusations. Indeed, I have several defamation cases pending in court. I believe that a man's reputation is worth more than money and ought to be vigorously defended.

If Mr. Asein will tell the truth, he will report that I have confronted him with these allegations, not on the phone, not by email but one-on-one. I left Lagos for Abuja to see Mr. Asein over these issues. Mr. Asein was kind enough to come to my hotel room to discuss these matters. We spent hours talking. He could not offer any explanation, not to talk of any good explanation for what he did. I know what defamation means and COSON would not have gone public without giving the man a chance to clear the air.  

Why does this matter? I have spent a good part of my life fighting for a decent copyright system in Nigeria. Long before it became obvious, I believed that the intellectual property economy would drive the world. Working with great Nigerians like Prof. Egerton Uvieghara, Prof. Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike, who just passed on, Prince Tony Momoh, Prince Bola Ajibola and Mr. Moses Frank Ekpo, I did everything possible to have the NCC set up. I organized risky demonstrations, served in the committee that drafted the Copyright Act and served twice on the Board of the NCC. Indeed, the memo that went to the Babangida Government to set up the NCC was written on my desk and sent to Prince Tony Momoh who was then Minister of Information & Culture. Put simply, Copyright has been my life.      

I look at what the NCC has become and I shudder. The organization set up to uplift the Nigerian creative industry has become one that shamelessly decimates the industry. The civil servants have forgotten why they are called civil servants. They are determined to be the masters of those they were appointed to serve.

Maybe because the NCC is not considered politically important and is not the Customs or NNPC, it has been foisted with a succession of poor leadership whose key interest is to grab all the power they can grab whether lawful or not and chop all the money they can chop.

We have watched in wonder as the NCC became the law maker, the accuser, the judge and the jury in its own case? Without question, the NCC has become a monster and needs to be tamed.

Oh yes, I hear they are coming after me. You know what they are planning? Rather than deal with the issues, they are searching with a tooth comb and studying everything I have written in Saturday Breakfast and elsewhere. They think they can bring me down under the cybercrime law. That is how desperate they are. You know that the NCC filed criminal charges against me under the Copyright Act which resulted in nothing. Now, this! Oh! my God!

See you next week.

HOW IN HELL DID I START WRITING SATURDAY BREAKFAST?

I once wrote a small column for the Punch. I was a lot younger with a lot of fire in the belly. Despite the mad tussle with deadlines and the once in a while writers' block, it was fun. I had very strong opinions and could not wait for people to hear them. Of course, when you are young, you think that you are the only one who has an opinion. As you get older however, you begin to realize how stupid you have been. Everybody has an opinion and everybody thinks that their opinion counts.

A young American called Mark Elliot Zuckerberg found out how much everybody wants to express their opinion. As a result, Zuckerberg has become a billionaire several times over. On Zuckerberg's Facebook, everybody is expressing their opinion to everybody whether they want to hear or not. Dirty linens are being washed with the whole world watching and the stinking water splashed around with complete abandon. Girls are stalking guys on Facebook and guys are enjoying being stalked. You can't be on Facebook and not say something. It is like a huge Oyingbo market. So, everybody is talking, everybody is lying and everybody is posing. In the new world of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp, everybody is a publisher, everybody is an editor and everybody is a columnist and fake news is everywhere.

Several times in the last couple of years, I was asked to write a column for a newspaper. Several times I said no. Why? As I have grown older, I have taken more to heart the Igbo saying that a palm wine tapper does not reveal everything he sees from the top of the palm wine tree. Just imagine what would happen in the hamlet if the local palm wine tapper had to describe the luscious naked women who thought they were bathing safely away from prying eyes or the illicit love affairs where the lovers thought they were in a world of their own and that apart from the skies, their secret was all theirs or the big tubers of yam thought to be secure from all and sundry in the rich man's ban. Like the local palm wine tapper, I have seen quite a bit and I have thought it better for me to stay away from the babble.

The other matter is: Is anyone really interested in what I have to say? Is anyone going to read what I write when all the kids are busy pinging and charting away on their smartphones or playing computer games? Except I write about how to get free internet data. How do I write a column when every jerk that has attached 'PMAN President' to his name is busy telling everybody that I am a fraud and the people at NCC which I laboured to set up can't wait to put me in jail and every artiste wants more royalties?

Pray, how do I write a column when Chinedu Chukwuji, the Total Boss, warns me that I need a break urgently but goes ahead to schedule back to back meetings with COSON staff, lawyers and the impossible Nigerian music copyright user who looks for every reason under the sun to avoid paying small royalties for the music that sustains his operations?

As if I have not stressed my marriage enough - how do I tell madam that with my eyes open, I have added to the wahala she has to tolerate – night after cold nights when at 2 am, 3 am and 4 am, the whole world is sleeping and she tiptoes into the study to find me hunched over, hammering at the keyboard of my long suffering lap top? 

I still do not understand how I was trapped into writing Saturday Breakfast and how I have done it every week for several years.

You know, I used to read Rueben Abati like mad. Outside of Ray Ekpu and my 'paddy', Sonala Olumhense, I thought Rueben was the real deal. He has style. Till today I cannot figure out how Rueben could give up the best job in the world. For what?! Seriously, how much did GEJ pay Rueben to write those drab government press releases? It takes a peculiar kind of talent to be a good government propagandist and I do not think that Rueben has that kind of talent. Seriously, there has to be something in the constitution that makes it a capital offence to take a great guy like Ruben Abati and make him the writer of government press releases.

That was the same way I felt when someone whisked Funke Egbemode to Abuja to go and chop with Patricia Etteh. When Mrs Etteh got removed as Speaker of the House of Representatives, I celebrated big time, not because I had any issue with the woman or that I thought that the person who would replace her would do better. I celebrated because I knew that Funke would come back to Lagos and write her columns without which my weekend is incomplete. And come back, she did.

You see the trouble with writing a column – You can see how I am poking my nose into other people's business as if I do not have enough trouble. See me wahala!

See you next week!

I WILL NOT RUN AWAY FROM NIGERIA FOR ANYONE!

Once in secondary school, I got 12% in a mathematics exam. That tore through my soul. Me, 12%? How did that happen?!

I usually do not blame anyone for whatever predicament I go through, believing that life is a challenge and only the strong survive.

I knew that the 12% result was my own making. Mathematics was never really a challenge to me so I had taken it for granted. Any time the mathematics teacher was in class, I did cross word puzzles or read some comics. I paid no attention.

At exam time, my brain froze.  I panicked! I could not remember any formula. Something like BODMAS became strange and confusing. The reason was very simple. I did not practice at all. From being overconfident, I totally lost confidence.

The shame and humiliation that followed my 12% debacle affected me going through life. I resolved that 12% has no business with me and 12% success would not come my way again. Next term, I followed the Mathematics teacher from class to class, took every note and practiced every formula. At the end of the term, I had an 'A' in the same mathematics. From then on, I considered a 'B' a failure.  

Those who went to school with me and those who have worked with me thereafter will testify that I prepare, practice and practice for everything. I never want to go to a meeting without studying[to1]   the issues and fully understanding what I want to come out with at the end of the meeting. I do not embark on an event without checking every box over and over again and being sure that there is a Plan 'B', if Plan 'A' goes wrong. I never take a case to court without being certain that my processes are very well done and that the facts and the law are on my side.

Have I always got an 'A'? Many of the times I have. There were however a few times that I have not. I recall going to a Lecturer at the University of Lagos to say that I wanted to retake his paper. I had scored a 'B' in the paper and was distressed. The lecturer was very angry with my 'audacity' and told me how stupid I was. He was emphatic that he does not give an 'A' to any student and that the 'A' belonged to him. At the end of the day, I found out that my 'B' was the best result in the subject. What I have discovered is that if you strive for and 'A', the worst that is likely to come your way is a 'B'.  

In the university, as a student, I used to teach classes and I found out that my fellow students preferred my classes to those of the lecturers. They would ask me questions they would not dare ask the lecturers. I knew that the students would enjoy embarrassing me if it was obvious I did not know what I was talking about. So, before any class, I would go through the subject with a tooth comb and prepare for every possible question. What my colleagues did not know was that was my way of preparing for exams.

I am that guy who would tell you bluntly that if you fail to plan, you have planned to fail. The problem is that there are many people who go through life without a plan and with little effort. They do not work for an 'A'. They would readily accept "let my people go".

I have spent much of my life wrestling with man's hatred. The hatred is not because I did anything to anyone. The hatred is usually because I have worked hard and achieved results that have confounded those who are just prepared for "let my people go".

I have little material wealth but I have faith and happiness. I appreciate the grace that the Almighty has given me to work hard, focus on every challenge and achieve results that are pleasing. I love the gift He has given me and I try to use it the best I can for the good of as many of his children as possible.

I have said before that I do not want to be Dangote or Otedola or Ronaldo or Donald Trump. My name is Tony Okoroji and I like it.

I know that the good Lord has given to each of his children, their peculiar gifts. The problem is that rather than harness their gifts, some people are very busy with envy and covetousness and fixated on the gifts of others. Somebody should tell them that I do not want to be them and no matter how much they try, they cannot be me.

I have heard some people say that I am arrogant. I have also heard it said that some people are determined to drive me out of Nigeria.  No sir! They won't because they can't. Last time I checked; it was clear to me that both my late mother and father were Nigerians. I am a full bloodied Nigerian. I do not concede my rights as a Nigerian citizen to anyone. What some people consider arrogance is confidence. I am not so stupid that I do not understand that the wisdom and strength we deploy do not belong to us but to the Almighty.

I know that hatred is a virus. It permeates your engine and destroys the effectiveness of your mechanism. That is why those who fight me with falsehood fail and keep failing.

What of those who think I will run away from Nigeria from them? Dem dey craze!

 

See you next week

 

 

 

 

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