These are not the best of times for the Director-General, Nigerian Copyright Commission, Afam Ezekude as the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria an affiliate of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) on Monday March 13th, 2018 began a massive demonstration at the Federal Secretariat Abuja headquarters of the commission as they locked him out.
Mr. Afam Ezekude, Director-General, Nigerian Copyright Commission
The visibly angry placard-carrying staff of the commission with colleagues from TUC and NLC sang repeatedly and danced in a frenzy. The demonstrators who brought activities to a halt at the sprawling Federal Secretariat complex, repeated their call for the immediate probe, prosecution and imprisonment of Mr. Ezekude.
The Senior Staff Association which says that it has in the recent past petitioned various anti-graft and security agencies in the country including EFCC, DSS and ICPC with irrefutable evidence of the rabid corruption engineered by Mr. Ezekude, proclaimed that their members do not want him anywhere near the commission again.
The protesting staff said that they have totally lost confidence in the leadership of the D-G who according to them has reduced the Nigerian Copyright Commission which is an enforcement agency set up to protect and promote the Nigerian Creative Industry to an agency for the private looting of funds thereby rendering the commission comatose.
The protesting staff
According to the union, they have resolved that they can no longer guarantee industrial harmony and peace in the commission except Ezekude who they say left London as a taxi driver 7-years ago to Nigeria to assume the position of D-G, is arrested and prosecuted immediately. The NCC staff vowed that their action will continue until appropriate action is taken against him.
Also see below footage of the crisis at the Copyright Commission’s headquarter, Abuja…