Counterfeit Products: Professor Asks Ambode to Make Alaba Market Priority

A legal scholar Professor Bankole Sodipo, has called on Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode to work assiduously with the police with a view to tackle Alaba, the largest counterfeit market in Africa.

Professor Bankole Sodipo who made the call at the 7th inaugural lecture of Babcock University, Ilisan Remo, Ogun state titled: "The Oracle Intellectual Property and Allied Rights, The Knowledge Economy and The Development Agenda" stated that intellectual property cannot thrive if Alaba market in its present form thrives.

He further stated that if the oracle's prophecies must be fulfilled, IP enforcement must be tackled, noting that the Federal High Court should increase the number of Judges and ensure that intellectual property cases are given speedy hearing.

The Professor lamented that foreign direct investment is jeopardised by the pace of commercial litigation in Nigeria and urged the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), to give priority to intellectual property cases, and commercial cases or for the Justices to move for intellectual property cases to have a final Commercial Court of Appeal if they can only give political cases speedy hearing.

Bankole noted that in gazing at the future, it will be politically wrong for anyone to challenge or criticise him if he decides to consult an oracle as an African who is trying to decipher the future. He added that his oracle, which is the Holy Scriptures made several postulations about the future and suggests that there will be a time known as the end times.

"One of the instructions of my oracle is that man should subdue the earth and replenish it. For the end times, my oracle gave two postulations that are apposite to our discourse: The first is that knowledge will increase. The second is that men will be lovers of themselves.

On the increment of knowledge, Bankole stated that "the last fifty years has witnessed changes of seismic proportions in technological innovation and the transformation of man." He went further to state that "If as advocated by Roscoe Pound, that law is an instrument of social engineering, then law must play a role in influencing the flow of the burgeoning river known as the knowledge economy. The bedrock on which the river of the knowledge economy flows is intellectual property and allied rights. I will posit that in order to fulfill the prophecy of my oracle, that knowledge will increase, we have to eschew elements of our culture capable of exterminating innovation. Africa must adorn a new culture, research and development derived from a culture of questioning, investigating and an eagerness to improve, the bedrock of IP."

On the second postulation that men will be lovers of self, he stated that the love of self is epitomised in the sports and entertainment industry as there has never been a time in the history of man that the entertainment industry played a more significant role than today and Nigeria is no exception. He also argued that there will be no television rights or sponsorship deals without IP since it plays a role in Africa's development agenda in the knowledge economy area of sports.

Bankole urged the National Broadcasting Commission to enforce its Broadcasting Code on the ratio of Local Content which stipulates that there must be 60 percent local content stressing that Nigeria will witness significant increase in sports revenues if the code is enforced.

“I hereby call on the National Broadcasting Commision to end this flagrant breach of its code and order that broadcasters, content providers and advertisers should ensure that local sports must constitute 40 percent of the genre of programming classified as sports on their airwaves. The Nigerian Bar Association, the local clubs and sporting personalities must form a coalition to enforce the Broadcasting Code as a veritable source of making IP influence our development agenda.”

He compared traditional knowledge to modern IP and gave various reasons whythe traditional means of protecting traditional knowledge did not evolve into the modern system. “First, traditional knowledge was based on communal or group ownership, IP is individually owned. Common and civil law did not recognise communal ownership but communal ownership of property is recognised in Nigeria. Second, the printing press that was a catalyst for the modern copyright system had writing and the printing press never appeared in traditional Nigeria, perhaps it may have impacted traditional knowledge. Third, intellectual property is an economic right but it is arguable that traditional knowledge never attained that function in traditional Nigeria.”

Citing underfunding by both government and the private sector as a major factor for the low level of research and development in Nigeria, Bankole stated that we need to pursue and evolve a research and development culture in line with his oracle's instruction to subdue the earth especially as knowledge will increase.

“If my oracle is correct, companies that invest in local research and development may evolve to be major companies in Africa as they will be seeking to subdue the earth with the awareness that knowledge will increase. Companies that ignore this will lose their market share. Africa needs angel investors, venture capitalists and institutions that will take ideas to the market place.”