~ As written by Onyeka Onwenu
In Lagos lives a middle aged man called Mayo Ayilaran. He is very passionate about music. In the last 25 years or more, Mr. Ayilaran has stuck himself in the middle of the music industry. Suggest to Mr. Ayilaran that he leaves the industry alone and he raises an alarm almost like you want to stab him.
I have checked everywhere and I cannot find one song written by Mayo Ayilaran. I do not know him to play any musical instrument. I have never seen Mr. Ayilaran on stage performing any song neither do I know one artiste that he has produced. He is neither a publisher of music nor has he bothered to start even a small label to help one young musician achieve his dream. Mr. Ayilaran is neither an artiste manager nor a music promoter. To the best of my knowledge, he has not bothered to invest in a small kiosk to sell music CDs or tapes not to speak of a mini studio in which an aspiring musician can do a demo. To all intents and purposes, Mr. Ayilaran is not a stakeholder in the Nigerian music industry yet he may be profiting more from the industry than anyone else and is clearly determined to maintain a stranglehold on the industry.
Not too long ago, Ayilaran looked rather haggard and unkempt and drove a rickety car. Today, he walks with a swagger. As the average Nigerian musician sweats to pay his children’s school fees, Mr. Ayilaran junkets around the major cities of the world in comfort. You may wonder who pays the bills for Ayilaran’s current opulent lifestyle. Of course, the bills are paid by innocent Nigerian artistes a lot of who on their own cannot afford a trip to Cotonou.
Mr. Ayiliran is a very persuasive person and possesses the same talent that your regular conman employs to make you look at what is clearly green and see it as red. I have been a victim of his talent. It was this talent that convinced me to become a director of Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) an organization of which Mayo Ayilaran is the lifetime General Manager. (I have just been told that he now refers to himself as Director General). My understanding was that MCSN was set up as a non profit organization, owned by the members, to collect royalties for the use of their musical works, which royalties will be distributed to those who own the works.
I have been involved in a lot of organizations but none like MCSN. As a director, I was discouraged from having any intelligent discussions with anyone who questioned how MCSN operates. At MCSN, any proposal to cooperate or work with other people in the industry is frowned at. They even attempted to influence me to see my colleagues in the industry as adversaries. While I was a director of MCSN I did not know how much money MCSN made nor how the money was disbursed. I did not have any access to the books and any attempt I made for a proper board meeting to be held so as to address these issues was rebuffed.
It took a few years but eventually it dawned on me that I had been conned. My hard earned reputation was being used to perpetrate a fraud against my profession and my country. I had to walk away from MCSN but only to become a victim of a barrage of media attack organized by Ayilaran.
The truth is that no real structure exists within the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria. In theory Mr. Ayilaran is supposed to be an employee of the organization but like every discerning person in the industry knows, Mayo Ayilaran is MCSN and MCSN is Mayo Ayilaran. Now and again he brings in innocent people with some name recognition and delivers his sweet talk to theses people and displays their names on his letter headed paper to give some credibility to his questionable operations. King Sunny Ade’s name has been used for this purpose in the past. Ebenezer Obey’s name has also been so used. The names of other persons are being used right now for the same purpose. I have no doubt that none of these persons can say with any certainty how much comes into MCSN, where the money comes from and how the money is spent.
MCSN without question is the Musical Copyright Scam of Nigeria. To maintain this fraud, Ayilaran must ensure that the music industry continues to be in disarray because a united industry will see through his scam and bring his nonsense to an end. That is why Ayilaran has continuously sought to infiltrate the organs of the industry and the Nigerian Copyright Commission and gets into a fit anytime the industry tries to speak with one voice.
This guy has done everything he can to make sure that collective administration of copyright in Nigeria is not reformed. The confusion in the sector serves his purpose and he will do anything to keep things the way they are. Each time the industry gets close to having one strong collecting society, Ayilaran will yell about freedom of association as if there is a provision in the Nigerian constitution or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that forbids Nigerian musicians or copyright owners from coming together.
Recently on the very day that several associations in our industry got together to hold the unprecedented rally against piracy in Lagos, Mr. Ayilaran took a full page advertorial in a national newspaper to try to scuttle the rally. Since then, he has published more full-page advertorials to ensure that Nigerian musicians remain in disarray. If you understand that each full page advertorial published by Ayilaran costs more than four hundred thousand naira, you may then begin to get a picture of how much money is available to this guy to play with.
The painful thing is that Mr. Ayilaran has deep contempt for Nigerian musicians. He talks about us with so much disdain. Of course, for many years we have been his MUGU. He has milked us for so long and believes that he can continue to milk us for the rest of his life. No matter how educated or exposed we are, Mayo Ayilaran believes that he is smatter.
He also believes that he is the master of ‘cheat and retreat’. He has been good at manipulating the Nigerian legal process to shield him from full accounting. He frequently tries to tie himself around respected international organizations like PRS and CISAC. I can bet that none of these organizations will knowingly support the Ayilaran scam. When he has been cornered in the past, his response has been to put up a hastily called press conference at which he presents a few cheques to a few musicians. At none of these conferences has he answered the real question: how much has MCSN collected in the name of Nigerian musicians all these years and where is the money?
Every self respecting stakeholder in the music industry must find the voice to say “no more of this nonsense” We are losing millions as a result of this madness. The time has come to call this man’s bluff and to free our industry from the shackles of a person who has invested nothing in it. This time, the EFCC must step in and do a thorough investigation of MCSN. Those who have lent their names to be used by Mr. Ayilaran and to shield MCSN from justice must find the strength and leave Ayilaran to go down alone. What ever crumbs they receive from him cannot justify the headache that is likely to come. Those who are too far gone or too weak to extricate themselves must be prepared to go down with him.
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Very well written. Any words for Mayo Ayilaran?
