A prominent Catholic music composer, Sir Jude Nnam, has dragged Emeka Okonkwo (E-Money) to court for alleged Copyright infringement. Five Star Music and Kingsley Chinweike Okonkwo (KCEE) are also Defendants in the suit.

He is seeking “A DECLARATION that the copyright, as well as the ownership rights to the song titled ‘SOM TOO CHUKWU’ which was surreptitiously included in the music album titled “CULTURAL PRAISE VOL.1 by the 3rd Defendant without the Plaintiff’s consent or authorization, is vested in the Plaintiff by Virtue of his composing the said song in the year 2001.

A DECLARATION that the Defendants jointly and severally infringed on the copyright of the Plaintiff by adapting, producing, distributing, marketing, advertising and performing to the general public the song titled “SOM TOO CHUKWU ” without his consent or authorization (either written or oral).

Perpetual Injunction retraining, preventing and or prohibiting the Defendants herein whether acting by themselves, or through their servants, agents, privies, legal representatives, or any other person howsoever described Acting for them and/or at their instance from infringing on the copyright of the plaintiff to the song titled “SOM TOO CHUKWU” by any means, however.

Mr. Jude also wants the court to compel the Defendants to jointly and severally render an account of the profits, income, and benefits generated from the adaptation, production, distribution, sale, advertisement, marketing, and performance of the titled “SOM TOO CHUKWU” from December 2020 till judgment and the sum of N150,000,000 as general damages

In the Statement of Claim with Suit No: FHC/L/CS/304/202 made available to TheNigeriaLawyer, Jude accused the defendants of reproducing, marketing and distributing his work without his permission as the original owner of the work.

He explained that the music was first produced in 2001 with the title “SOM TO CHUKWU”, to celebrate his daughter’s first birth, but he was surprised to discover that his original work has be reproduced, duplicated, sold, marketed, advertised, distributed to the general public and retitled as “CULTURAL PRAISE VOL.1” by the Defendants.

He said he composed the musical work for private worship of God and for liturgical purposes in the church, especially during offerings, tithe and donations in the church adding that apart from composing the musical work in sofa and staff notation, he went to fix the musical work in audio form with the help of a choral group and he relied on Keyboard, African drum, wooden gongs and guitar as musical instruments

Mr. Nnam who is a Music Director, Yamaha Ambassador, choral conductor, keyboardist, worship songwriter, accused the 3rd Defendant Kingsley (Kcee) of performing the musical work in 2020 at a wedding reception in Nigeria and has continued till January 2021. He also said other artists and copies of the said music have been distributed digitally on various social media platforms without his consent or authorization.

He also avers that in adapting, producing, distributing, marketing the musical work for sale, the Defendants failed to recognize and/or acknowledges his copyright as well as ownership rights to the musical work and that copyright protection under the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is automatic upon his creation and composition of the work in the year 2001.

Credit: Nigerian Lawyer.

By Dr. Uche Nworah

Very soon, just very soon, you will take off from Lagos, Abuja, P.H, Kano, Kaduna, London, New York, Beijing, Paris, Amsterdam etc and land in your fatherland, the land of the rising sun.

As you enjoy these amazing shots by James Eze of the control tower, terminal building, Governor Willie Obiano giving Captain Musa Nuhu, DG of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NACA) and his team a tour of the airport facilities during their inspection visit on Wednesday, 24th March, 2021, and runway of Anambra International Cargo and Passenger airport, as it blends into the Umueri skyline, imagine the economic possibilities.

Those naysayers who wonder whether this is real should believe. It’s as real as night and day.

Those who question the choice of an airport by Governor Willie Obiano over other things the government could have done with the resources should understand that government is a continuum. This government considers this airport project a priority likewise other infrastructural projects it has embarked on, because of the multiplier economic effect. The next government can focus on other areas and projects.

Those who question the idea behind the airport when there is Asaba, Enugu and Owerri airports should understand that there are lots of considerations in passengers and users choosing an airport to patronise such as (1) Proximity from home/office/departure point (2) State of origin effect/emotional and sentimental reasons/patronising your own to grow your state economy (3) Service availability e.g Cargo, hotels, shopping mall etc (4) Flight schedules and routes available etc. (5) Operating airlines (6) Ease of arriving at airport/ Note that traffic on Niger Bridge Onitsha sometimes lasts hours etc

Note also that:

(1) The Anambra airport is not targeting only passengers and cargo users from Onitsha. The catchment is the whole Anambra state and South East states. If the cargo airport takes off, you don’t need to go to NAHCO shed in Lagos and queue up to clear your goods if you are selling them in the South East. Anambra airport is nearer.

(2) Over time, Anambra entrepreneurs have demonstrated appreciable comparative advantage in airline management. Late Chief Ikwuemesi who owned Sosoliso airlines, Chief Allen Onyema, owner of Air Peace, and Dr. Obiora Okonkwo, owner of United Nigeria Airlines are all Ndi Anambra. Anambra -born Chief Chidi Anyaegbu, Owner of Chisco Transport has announced that the group’s Havila Airlines will take off shortly.

They have all indicated that they would make Anambra airport their hub.

If we should apply all these factors, then the Anambra airport beats Asaba and all the other south eastern airports in competitive terms.

Another critical point to note while assessing the viability of the Anambra airport is scalability. There is ample land in Umueri and the surrounding airport communities such as Nteje, Umunya, Aguleri etc for expansion. Remember the saying that ‘Rome was not built in a day’. Even Heathrow airport in London, United Kingdom started with just Terminal one. Over time, it has developed to Terminals 2,3,4 and 5.
Successive governments in Anambra state can expand the airport and add to the pioneering and visionary work started by Governor Willie Obiano, who conceived and built the airport in under 2 years, following the disappointment with the Chinese Investors snd Consortium that the airport was concessioned to originally in 2017 when the project was first flagged off under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.

The non-performance of that memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the Chinese Consortium and Anambra state government made Governor Obiano to attack the airport project with renewed vigour and innovative funding model, with Anambra state government fully funding and owning the airport as it is at the moment without incurring any debts. According to the Governor, this was to fulfil the promise he made to Ndi Anambra that he would build them an airport.

Those who are smart are already moving in and thinking of compatible businesses they can set up. Lands around the airport area is selling fast. Trust our people who understand the law of first mover in business and it’s advantages, they are already primed for the eventual take-off of the airport.

What are you waiting for?

@uchenworah.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a new State Accountability, and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity to strengthen subnational governance systems in six key states across Nigeria.

The five-year, $72 million State2State Activity helps improve how these states plan and budget, raise revenues, increase civil society participation, and oversee service delivery in the health; education; and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sectors.  The activity will begin operations in Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Gombe and Sokoto states and later expand to others.

State2State works primarily at the state level, but also supports federal institutions and local government areas by strengthening government processes like public financial management and procurement; monitoring and evaluation related to delivery of services; increasing responsiveness to citizen priorities; and improving capacity to manage societal conflict through prevention, mitigation and reconciliation.

“The scale and scope of the State2State activity is a potent symbol of the U.S. government’s commitment to partner with Nigeria to improve governance,” Ambassador Leonard said at the virtual launch ceremony.  “We have made this sizable commitment because we believe dramatic improvements sometimes require considerable resources.”

State2State promises to increase accountability, transparency, and effectiveness while building on locally derived solutions, including expanding reforms that have proven effective in other parts of the country.

“There’s no doubt that we need the support of development partners to improve and sustain delivery of critical services,” said David Nweze Umahi, Executive Governor of Ebonyi State, one of three governors to participate in the virtual ceremony. “State2State has come to Ebonyi at an important time, and I assure you that we will collaborate with this activity to ensure that it succeeds.”

Implemented by DAI in partnership with key Nigerian organizations, the activity will capture, document, and share best practices – working with partner states to make more information available to citizens and relevant institutions.

By U.S. Mission Nigeria

African Development Bank (AfDB.org) President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has called for vaccine justice for Africa. Speaking at the launch of the Bank’s African Economic Outlook 2021 report on Friday, Adesina decried the lack of Covid-19 vaccines reaching Africa.

“We need global solidarity and vaccine justice for Africa,” Africa’s premier development bank chief said.

Adesina underlined the stark disparities between vaccine acquisitions by several rich countries that have acquired sufficient vaccines to inoculate their populations twice over, and African countries, that remain primarily dependent on the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative for the minuscule quantities of vaccines acquired so far.

Speaking on CNN’s First Move with Julia Chatterley on Friday, Adesina said: “So far, 14.6 million vaccines have been delivered in Africa, but many people still cannot get shots in their arms. That is only 1% of what we need. We are way off the mark in terms of getting to 60% of herd immunity, and sadly, I do not see that happening for another year or two at this rate— not unless things change.”

According to Adesina, “We therefore need to improve Africa’s access to vaccines. COVAX is doing a great job but still, we need more. We need them in adequate quantity. We need them quickly and we need them at an affordable price.”

So far, 14.6 million vaccines have been delivered in Africa, but many people still cannot get shots in their arms

Acquiring vaccines has significant implications for African countries. As Adesina emphasized in a broader discussion with panelists at the launch of the African Economic Outlook 2021—including Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences—for Africa, rapid vaccine acquisition is a matter of life and death. As elsewhere, Africa’s first priority is to prolong lives and preserve jobs.

From an economic perspective, Stiglitz agreed with Adesina that the slow pace of acquiring vaccines and arresting the pandemic will make stemming extreme poverty and negative economic growth difficult. They agreed that a comprehensive global plan was needed to help countries cope with mounting debt, which the pandemic had compounded.

Africa’s economy is expected to grow by 3.1% in 2021. However, 39 million Africans could be pushed into extreme poverty this year because of the pandemic unless the international community takes the kind of action that Stiglitz and Adesina are calling for now.

The African Development Bank chief says: “as long as Africans remain unvaccinated, the world will go right back to square one.” He said no amount of ‘vaccine passports’ being advocated for by some developed countries could change that fact.  “Africa needs to develop its pharmaceutical industry and begin manufacturing. The African Development Bank is going to support African countries to do this,” Adesina said.

Supporting this position, Stiglitz said in his conversation with Adesina: “One of the things that some of us have been campaigning for is the suspension of the intellectual property rights related to Covid-19 because the supply constraint that you describe is at least, to some extent, artificial… If access to the intellectual property rights were more extensive, there is throughout the emerging markets and developing countries considerable capacity to produce a lot of more vaccines.”

He added that it was in the self-interest of advanced countries to make sure that everybody has access to the vaccine and other related medicines. “The longer the disease festers in any part of the world, it can mutate and one of the things we know is that those mutations are not going to respect borders. The Covid-19 virus doesn’t carry a passport.”

Other notable African voices that have called for speeding up vaccine delivery to Africa are those of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. John Nkengasong.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

There is a common misconception that the most dangerous threats to encounter on modern users’ digital journeys are likely to appear during Internet surfing. The reality however, based on the most recent analysis of cyberattacks in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria within 2020 by Kaspersky experts demonstrates that users are in fact more likely to face malware related attacks hidden within their devices.

Such threats are classified as ‘local’, which means they are detected either on users’ devices or on portable data storage devices, such as flash drives. In 2020, 25% of Kaspersky private users in South Africa, 40% in Kenya and 38% in Nigeria were attacked by such threats. To provide a comparison, web attacks only affected 9% of users in South Africa, 11% in Kenya and 8% in Nigeria.

When looking at corporate users in these regions, the numbers are similar: 23% of corporate users in South Africa, 29% in Kenya and 35% in Nigeria encountered such local threats within 2020.

It’s more common for a malware to be disguised as something else to hide from the security solutions, remaining an unseen threat to users

Unfortunately, there has been an increase in the sophistication of such threats – which may be hiding on the user’s device within a seemingly legitimate file for a while, to fly under the radar, and only strike later.

“The cyber threat landscape across Africa is constantly evolving,” says Denis Parinov, a cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky. “A few years ago, there were much more drive-by attacks – cases when different malicious software is downloaded and being run while the user simply browses the Internet. Nowadays, most of the web-threats “stays in browser”: they specialise in content replacement, browser locking or clickjacking, online-skimming, cookie stuffing, etc. Now the situation when a user could download a malicious file directly is not too often. It’s more common for a malware to be disguised as something else to hide from the security solutions, remaining an unseen threat to users. The good news however is that modern security solutions are too advanced for such malware to fly under radars – it is more likely to be blocked either during the initial scan of the file by a security solution that happens by default, or within the very moment such programs attempt to launch.”

To protect against cyber threats including malware, Kaspersky recommends keeping to the following guidelines:

• Do not follow dubious links from letters, messages in instant messengers or SMS
• Regularly install updates for the operating system and applications
• Install applications only from official stores
• Use complex and different passwords for accounts
• Regularly copy important data from your device to the cloud, to a USB flash drive or hard drive
• Do not give applications access to those functions that they do not need
• Install a reliable security solution such as Kaspersky Internet Security (bit.ly/3168MCA)

In addition, companies are encouraged to provide training to improve cyber literacy among their employees. For example, the automated platform Kaspersky ASAP (bit.ly/3cZ8frF) helps to develop safe behaviour skills and form sustainable cybersecurity habits. The solution allows the company to assess the current knowledge of an employee in the field of cybersecurity, and in accordance with this, determine the set of skills that the employee needs, depending on job duties and risk profile, and build a timetable for the program.