Founding vision, cause of ad agencies’ animosity- Odenigbo
By Zion Rufus
Veteran journalist and lawyer, Charles Odenigbo in an apparent reaction to a statement made by a Nigerian advertising icon, Akin Odunsi has shared that the vision of the founding fathers of APCON only created bad blood between advertising agencies.
It should be recalled that Akin Odunsi, an icon in the Nigerian advertising industry, in a statement made at the ARCON forum on political advertising, said that the founding fathers of APCON did not intend APCON to be a government parastatal (on the premise of the name change which automatically awarded ARCON the statutory responsibility of making provision for the regulation and control of advertising in all its ramifications).
Odenigbo explained that the vision of the founding fathers was for them to just have an advertising association where they can do their thing as agencies, and it created bad blood between advertising agencies that were now owing newspaper houses, TV stations, and radio stations hundreds of millions of Naira, and the media houses were no longer comfortable for being members of APCON governing council.
He said: “So that created that bad blood for a long time from 1988 till where we are. They’ve gone to court with all of themselves. But now that dominance of the agencies has been whittled down. So all the other bodies are now balanced, so we have an organization that the membership and composition can now accommodate as many possible. It strengthens their vision, but it does not allow them to dominate every other player in the industry.”
The composition and regulatory frameworks of advertising bodies saddled with the responsibility of regulating and controlling the practice of advertising in Nigeria has been a long standing topical issue.
One of the regulatory bodies involved in regulating advertising in Nigeria is the Advertising Registered Council of Nigeria (ARCON, formerly APCON), the apex authority for the Nigerian advertising industry.
Validating his premise, Odenigbo continued: “It is very simple and straightforward. First, APCON was set up by a decree, Decree 55 in 1988. That was the law that made advertising a profession in Nigeria. Now, in the governing council, we have all the sectoral bodies, Newspaper Proprietors Association, AAPN(now AAAN), ADVAN, BON, and so on; now, whenever people violate the law, they say they are not advertising practitioners, and when they go to the court, the court says you cannot enforce this law against people, and they were carrying unwholesome adverts; adverts that do not comply, adverts that expose your own children, and younger ones to danger, and nobody could touch them because they were not advertising practitioners, and the law did not forbid them.”
“Now with this new law, it doesn’t matter whether you are an individual, registered practitioner, Organisation, anything that has to do with advertising, marketing communications, or advertisements in Nigeria, this law will regulate the way it is done.”
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