The Musical Copyright Society Nigeria Ltd/Gte (MCSN) has congratulated Grammy Award winner, Temilade Openiyi aka Tems for her achievement.
The MCSN chief also called for better funding of the Nigerian Copyright Commission as a way of protecting the interest of artistes so that they can begin to take acting very seriously.
Commenting on the award in a network Radio Nigeria (Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria), interview at the weekend, the Chief Executive Officer of the MCSN, Mr. Mayo Ayilaran showered encomiums on her for the achievement and spoke about other issues in entertainment.
“The Nigerian artistes have been making their mark on the world entertainment stage. And this is evidence that Nigeria is a great country. And we are making our mark in the field of science, agriculture and all other human endeavour, that Nigerian musicians are being recognized and winning awards, particularly at the Grammy level shows clearly that we have talent, we have created and Nigeria is a great country” He reacted to a question on the assessment of Nigeria musicians’ contribution to the world stage.
On how the country can maximise the gains of Tems achievement, Mr. Ayilaran said, “Yes, we can maximise it, first the government must be conscious of its own contribution to making the country great, to make our artistes perform well but as it is presently, there is very little or nothing to show for the Government involvement or contribution in this area. Whatever we have seen in terms of winning awards or winning many things across the globe in the creative industry is due to individual efforts. There has not been serious Government commitment. Government should lead the way, see the French-speaking African countries, their governments do a lot of investments in the creative industry”
Continuing he added, “Then the artistes themselves, they have to concentrate and do what is necessary to maintain and increase the standard. Actually this year I expected to see more Nigerians winning so it is a bit disappointing to me that we only have one win and another nomination. I had expected to see more, having won two or three at the 64th Grammy Awards”
In specific terms, Mr Ayilaran suggested, “First, the Government will have to get its acts together by creating policies that will encourage the artistes to take creativity very seriously.
“For example, making sure that their rights are protected everywhere there is the exploitation of those works because presently we have the Copyright Act that protects these rights but the enforcement is not heavy enough.
“The agency saddled with copyright matters is not well funded, that is the Nigerian Copyright Commission, and investment in places where creativities are exhibited is lacking.
“See the National Theatre as an example, it is only recently we hear that it has been privatized or conceded to private management but those are the kind of places concerts should be held regularly.
Other agencies are inhibiting the exploitation or inflow of funds or outflow of even necessary materials that will aid creativity. Then what instruments that these musicians use, they are so costly, heavily taxed and so on. These problems require the Government to set up a think tank to proffer solutions or the way forward in the areas of what the individual artiste can do, what the Government can do and what the corporate bodies can do in order to make our artistes excel”.
