Challenges his accusers to go to court if they are sure of their facts
Days after the cyberspace was awash with the allegations from a civil society group, Peace & Development for Africa Initiative (PDAI), and its subsequent call on the director general (DG) to resign, some staff of the National Copyright Commission (NCC), and who will not want to be mentioned, pleading anonymity, in line with the age long norm that civil servants “are seen and not heard”, have raised their voices in support of the DG of NCC, Mr. John O. Asein.
The staff members who dubbed themselves ‘Concerned NCC Staff’, said they decided to intervene in what they called campaign of calumny against Asien to save the Commission and the copyright administration in Nigeria.
According to them, “we know all those behind the allegations; we know them very well. We know their intentions and at the right time, we will unmask them. They want to dictate what happens and who heads the commission. We will not allow that because we all own Nigeria,” the leader of the group told newdawnngr.
He said that the last time the commission had it good was in the days of Professor Adebambo Adewopo (SAN) as the DG adding that the staff of the commission passed through hell in the days of the immediate past DG.
“Can you imagine that the commission is still using cars procured in the days of Prof. Adewopo. Then in his days, the commission had money and he was not afraid to spend it on us and the job of copyright protection; it was on record that he approved Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) among others but that was not the case in the last eight years; instead those who disagreed with the immediate past DG then, were transferred to ‘Siberia’. The good old days are about coming back and these people want to send us back to the evil days.”
They queried how Asein who does not have a regular subvention can embezzle the kind of money they claimed in their petition that he has misappropriated. I think that these people need to get their heads re-examined at Aro. If they are sure of their allegation, let them go to court and we will meet them there. The press should not be used to pull people down,” they concluded.
