The Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja Branch, this Monday, presented an award to Chief Tony Okoroji, Chairman, Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), in appreciation of his tireless efforts in promoting the respect for Intellectual Property Rights in Nigeria.
Chief Okoroji who was Guest Speaker at the Knowledge Sharing Session of the NBA, Ikeja Branch’s February 2025 meeting, spoke on “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES IN THE RAPIDLY CHANGING KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY” to a packed audience of the NBA Executives, several Senior Advocates of Nigeria and hundreds of lawyers of different ages and experiences, at the Bar Centre, in the High Court premises in Ikeja.
Speaking about his experience in the tortured journey, promoting Intellectual Property Rights across Nigeria, the former President of PMAN said: “I have written before that in the building of the copyright system in Nigeria, I have carried placards many times and led very risky demonstrations many-many times. On several occasions, I could easily have been shot by an “unknown soldier”.
“I have been seen in many courts across the nation many-many times not over any private land dispute or any matrimonial cause. Indeed, I may have been to court more times than many active litigation lawyers and witnessed against top corporations, governments and individuals, time and time again. I have done this because in building a copyright culture, we must have court decisions that set the precedents and define the ‘dos and don’ts’.
“I have gone many-many days without sleep, travelled lonely roads at dangerous hours, written opinion articles, delivered hundreds of lectures, organized myriad conferences, seminars and workshops, written a striking book on the subject because I believe that a significant contributor to the future of our nation will not be oil or gas. It will not be minerals buried in the soil. It will be the product of the minds of talented and brilliant young Nigerians. I verily believe that our greatest wealth and our future trading assets will be our intellectual property”.
To repeated applause, the gentleman who helped to draft the recently repealed Copyright Act and its first amendment, and served twice on the board of the NCC, said: “My dedication to the intellectual property cause has never been because I wanted a title or because I was in pursuit of personal wealth. It has been my way of serving the Almighty and my nation. That is the way I do my own offering, pay my tithe and praise the Lord”.
Chief Okoroji went ahead to dissect Intellectual Property Rights and show how these rights have become the fulcrum of the enormous wealth of the top ten wealthiest men in the USA. He said that we are unlikely to find in the list, people who owe their wealth to the traditional sources of wealth like steel mills, oil wells, real estates, hotels, old-style manufacturing, etc., concluding that the new kids on the block, are essentially what he termed, “software driven entrepreneurs”.
“How much do we respect the works of authors in Nigeria?”, asked Chief Tony Okoroji. In response he said, “I have no doubt that after this speech, most of the lawyers here will think that they have an inalienable right to reproduce this presentation without authorization. That clearly will be an infringement of my rights. The way we treat intellectual property rights may also be seen by the fact that no one has promised to give me ‘shi-shi’, as Peter Obi will say, to share my thoughts with this group of learned men. Elsewhere in the world, people are paid handsomely to deliver speeches and lectures. Indeed, there are people who live entirely on it”.
Chief Okoroji spoke against a new group of lawyers he referred to as “copy and paste” lawyers. In his words: “this lazy group has no respect for the intellectual property rights of good lawyers who burn the midnight oil and produce brilliant processes. Rather than sit down, think and produce their own processes, they think that the new form of law practice, allows them to steal the works of others without authorization”. He said that he verily believes that until lawyers begin to litigate against these infringers of their rights, this trend will continue.
He made several predictions on what he believes will be changes to the way we do things as a result of developments in information technology and intellectual property.
In closing, Chief Okoroji called on Nigerian lawyers to work tirelessly to uphold the NBA mantra which is “promoting the rule of law” for the peace and development of the Nigerian nation and its citizens. He warned: “It is either the courts or the cutlass”.
On a very exciting day at the Bar Centre, the award to Chief Tony Okoroji, was jointly presented by NBA Ikeja branch Chairman, Mr Adeniyi Quadri; Treasurer, Ms. Ganiyat Adisa and PDC Chairman, Mr. Kola Dopamu.
