NDUBUEZE NAOMI

Piracy and counterfeiting have become a major problem for Nigerian brands. Recently in Lagos, Tara Fela-Durotoye, CEO, House of Tara joined other brand owners to push a campaign tagged “United We Stand” calling on stakeholders in the industry to come together to fight against counterfeiting and piracy of their products.

Durotoye said the fight against counterfeiting is necessary; hence it is important for stakeholders to come together to push the fight against counterfeiting forward.

“As brand owners, we can’t keep still, we need to teach our followers to change their values. We produce our brands with all sweat invested in it, and yet we do not get profit from them because of there are numerous fake products that have our brand names on them. We can’t do this on our own; we all need to work together and with the government to fight against piracy and counterfeiting.”

Aisha Abubakar, the Minister of State, Trade and Industry being present at the event said the issue of counterfeiting has to be addressed indeed. “We will ensure the government render support to deliver the mandate against counterfeit. Every brand created by Nigeria should be celebrated and they must be duly protected.”

Obafemi Agaba, a lawyer on protection of brands said during a panel discussion that the call is necessary because it is fighting for the generation ahead. According him, Nigeria doesn’t have a law that directly stops counterfeiting, although several laws have been drafted but still waiting for approval from the government. “We need to march to the House of Assembly and tell them to push forward the law that stops counterfeiting.

“The best way to get this information to the grassroots is through speaking our common language which is pidgin. We need to use pidgin more officially because it is what brings us together as Nigerians and also through finding out what makes us connect as Nigerian which is the social media,” said Agaba.

Okechukwu Ofili, CEO, Okada Books said involving the government to fight this cause is not possible due to other issues the government needs to attend to. “We have to form a creative association that will be advocating for this cause telling the public the dangers of piracy and for this to happen, we have to change the environment involved in piracy for us to implement our plan.”