The Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria [PMAN] is set to return to the mainstream of Nigeria’s entertainment industry; following the judgement of a court of competent jurisdiction in favour of the establishment of an interim care-taker executive committee led by a President in the person of Mr. Pretty Okafor, plans have been building to re-establish PMAN as a respected and reputable entertainment union.
On the 13th of March this year, we successfully unveiled an intended Biometrics Card Scheme at Four Point Hotel on Victoria Island; sequel to the success of that event, we will be launching the project on the 21st of June for the start of it’s structured implementation. This event will hold at Planet One – Maryland, Ikeja [Lagos], in conjunction with Airtel and four banks namely Union Bank, Skye Bank, Heritage Bank and Unity Bank; other corporate organizations supporting the launch are Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System [NIBSS] and Capital 3 [Corporate Finance Advisers]. We are committed to a quarterly birth of innovative projects for PMAN’s much delayed uplift; the biometric card project is designed to be the starting-point of a broader scheme that will ensure significant levels of protection for Nigerian musicians’ commercial rights. To herald this innovative initiative, a symbolic Anti-Piracy Walk involving a coalition of Nigerian entertainers will hold on Friday the 19th, two days before the launch of the bio-cards.
Nigerian musicians and their colleagues in other entertainment endeavours have been earning far below the commercial value of the works they produce due to a variety of factors that border around absent infrastructure, poor institutional and policy environment. The Pretty Okafor-led PMAN leadership, on the strength of the court judgement awarded in it’s favours last year, has done a comprehensive assessment of Nigeria’s entertainment business landscape, the outcome of which informed the introduction of a multi-purpose identity card to Nigeria’s music industry; the bio-card will function as an ATM card – apart from making it possible for PMAN to develop a sound database of persons involved in Nigeria’s music business sector, it will also avail users a CUG [Close User Group] platform that will enable them call their music business associates for a monthly flat rate of just ₦1,000! The viability of this initiative is evident in the participation of 4 banks whose commitment to the project has been very encouraging.
PMAN has been stranded in the wilderness of crises for many years. It’s consequent destitute state is a major ‘blemish’ on it’s precious existence which recent efforts under the leadership of Pretty Okafor are partly aimed at eliminating; not long ago, Tee Mac returned the original documents of a large expanse of land owned by the Association in Abuja. This development basically constitutes part of the transition to building a world-class secretariat for PMAN; this intention and other unprecedented plans along with the career-enhancing biometric cards project have not emerged without adverse reactions by some members of the Association.
Time has come for a new generation of Nigerian musicians to manage PMAN; some members of the older generation have aligned with this
generational shift imperative, while others have been insisting on having the Association in their grip for ‘business as usual.’ Some of the active members of PMAN’s team of young and dynamic leaders are Ruggedman, Sunny Neji, Asha Gangali, Ochonma and Baba Dee. The list also includes Tolu Obey, 2face Idibia and Felix Duke; most encouragingly, some of the elders who have been supportive of PMAN’s revival under a young and innovative leadership are Charlie Boy, Chief Tony Okoroji, Admiral Dele Abiodun and K-One De Ultimate – others are Gentleman Emma Ogosi, Daniel Wilson, Prof. [Sir] Victor Uwaifor, King Sunny Ade and Evang. [Dr.] Ebenezer Obey.
The business potential of Nigeria’s music industry runs in hundreds of billions of Naira, as far as annual revenue-haul is concerned; primordial and protracted crises over the years before now within the PMAN fold have effectively robbed Nigerian musicians of colossal chunks of what they deserve as income from their creative investments. The current executive committee of PMAN seizes this opportunity to urge the constellation of ‘senior generation’ Nigerian musicians that have been quarrelling and threatening to torpedo the efforts of the current young leadership of the Association to emphasize the greater interest of PMAN as a family of enormous potentials and the priceless welfare of Nigerian musicians as a economic imperative over parochial sentiments that have successfully impoverished the organization amid copious potentials! It is only when unity and peace prevail in our Association as currently set on the path of manifestation by a binding court judgement that we will be able to make the progress we deserve individually and collectively to the general enhancement of the Nigerian economy; it is time for Nigerian entertainers to enter the era of being respected as big, informed and organized contributors to the development of the Nigerian economy. There is every reason for us to drop the begging-bowl as a new dawn beckons for our collective socio-economic prosperity!
Thank you.
Pretty Okafor
Interim President, PMAN.
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