WEB TV:I Will Sue PMAN - Lai Mohammed

Minister of information, culture and tourism Lai Mohammed has responded to allegations of plagiarism and intellectual property theft from the Performing Musician Employers Association of Nigeria

“As a Minister of Information and Culture, I can’t stop people coming to me with proposes, so when a supposedly reputable organisation as PMAN comes and says he wants to see the minister and says we want to organise conferences on creative industry; does that stop me as a minister from organising my own creative industry especially when you did not come to me with a blue print to show me how the conference will be.”

Lai Mohammed said this while responding to allegations of plagiarism and intellectual property theft from the performing musician employers association of Nigeria (PMAN).

The minister, who recently hosted a creative Nigeria summit on financing the creative industry, described the allegation as laughable and promised to counter sue the body for defamation of character.

PMAN had alleged that the minister’s creative summit is part of a proposal submitted to the minister on the 5th of August 2016 and faulted the ministry for going ahead to implement parts of its without permission.

PMAN's counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, said “though the conference was deceptively tagged “creative industry financing conference”, it is our client’s firm belief that the conference was held in full implementation of our client’s original brain child and ideas as clearly highlighted in their respective presentation of 5th August 2016 and action plan of 18th August 2016, all in the possession of the ministry of information and culture.

“Our client viewed this action as a grave infringement of their intellectual property rights and dubious conversion of their brain child ideas and concept, originating from the painstaking professional study, research and investigation that gulped them over 500,000.”

The minister believes he is well within his rights to host a conference of the creative industry.

He further stated that he is at liberty to either take or reject any proposal submitted to his office.