APCON indicts admen over foreign agencies’ breach of Nigerian advertising laws
Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, (APCON) has indicted senior advertising practitioners in the country for the breach of Nigerian advertising rules by foreign agencies, saying that the collaboration and conspiracy they provided the foreign investors is the cause of their impunity and defiance.
It stated that there is no way foreign investors could come into the country and start advertising practice without having local surrogates aiding and abetting their operations.
Lamenting this ugly trend mid-week during an exclusive interactive media chat with select journalists in Lagos State, Chief Executive Officer of APCON, Alhaji Garba Bello Kankarofi said “it is unfortunate that some senior advertising practitioners would be encouraging foreign agencies to breach the Nigerian laws on advertising practice while some other practitioners who are in the majority would be complaining at the rate foreign agencies are coming in to take over the few businesses in the industry”.
It will be recalled that in recent times, foreign agencies have focused attention on practicing advertising business in Nigeria because of the attraction of its market. Some go through the proper channel by establishing affiliate or partnership relationships while some prefer to set up shops fully in the country and run the shops with full ownership of equity investments contrary to APCON code which gives or stipulates that foreign investors can only own 25% of equity investments in Nigeria. In some cases some come into the country with their brief cases, get the brief and run back to their home countries to implement for the local clients without adhering to the rules and codes governing advertising practice in Nigeria.
The APCON registrar who expressed the council’s dilemma over the level of advertising breach by foreign agencies lamented that it is rather unfortunate that this development is taking place while the federal government is yet to constitute the governing council of the regulatory body as he believed that it would have been pretty difficult for the foreign agencies to continue flouting its laws if the council had been in place.
His words:
“The increasing level of abuse currently happening in the industry is a result of connivance between foreign agencies and their local accomplices who claimed that the market should not be regulated”.
He pointed out that as this few group conspired against regulating the market, majority practitioners complain to APCON that foreigners are taking their jobs.
While urging those affected to come out with proofs of foreign agencies known to have acted against the law, he said it was difficult for the regulatory body to fight the battle alone as it lacks the capacity needed to monitor activities across the country. Kankarofi who also puts the blame on the absence of council formation said it was willing to collaborate with stakeholders to address the abnormalities.
He however advised stakeholders to quickly set up a committee to address the problem.
He said” APCON is not a practicing agency. What we do is to regulate advertising, corporate licensing and making sure that businesses are done in line with best practice and codes.
“It is not possible for APCON administration to know which businesses have changed hands. I think all the sectoral groups affected need to provide information with respect to that. If we are to have a council today, the Chairman of Council will automatically invite the party and the sectoral group heads to address the issue. However, I need to state that it is not our duty to regulate business deals and affiliations. Ours is to ensure that anybody coming to Nigeria to practice advertising have a license before going into practice. But if people come in through clandestine manners and back doors, there is nothing we can do because we are limited by capacity and contacts. If anybody comes in to tell us the situation, then automatically APCON will approach AAAN president including ADVAN itself. If we find out and discover that they are not members of sectoral groups, we will find ways of resolving the issue.”
“ Take for instance, last year, some foreign companies came in and luckily they ran to us, inform council and we wrote and settle the matter administratively. Many people are avoiding this corporate licensing regime because they know they may not be able to fulfill the requirements. So, they go behind to use local agencies to register. I believe the sectoral groups and APCON need to come up with a committee that will address this type of situation. “For us here in APCON, we have limitations as to what we can do and that which we cannot. I cannot go to court for such issue but I think we need to work together to deal with this kind of abnormalities. I think it is the senior practitioners that are much more involved in aiding and abetting this kind of irregularities”.
Even among the AAAN agencies, there are divisions with respect to such issues. While some believe it is a good development, others see it as stifling creativity. For me, I don’t think it is right for foreign agencies to come into Nigeria through the backdoor”.
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