Tinubu didn’t order the removal of ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’ billboards – ARCON DG

Director-General, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, (ARCON) Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, tells FATTEH HAMID why the council removed the ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’ billboard adverts nationwide and dissolved the Advertising Standard Panel Secretariat

The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, ordered the removal of the ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’ advertisement billboards across the country. Why was that decision taken?

The decision was taken because the adverts violated the vetting guidelines. In Nigeria, the advertising industry is a regulated industry and there are some tenets that we align with. In doing advertisements in Nigeria, we don’t disparage and we don’t do comparative adverts. If you are using a superlative word, you need to justify it and some other things like that. So, those adverts clearly violated the rules and regulations. For example, you know that adverts fall in the category of cause advertising which means that you are promoting a cause. In that particular instance, ‘All eyes on the Judiciary,’ the Nigerian legal system provides that where an issue is before the court of law, that issue is not to be discussed. Now, the adverts are against the principle of fair hearing. It is a blackmail on the judiciary and if you look at the copy of that advert, it is speaking to the judiciary as it relates to what is before them.

According to the statement issued by the council, the advertisement was controversial and capable of instigating public unrest and a breach of public peace. Can you explain what that meant?

There are political alignments and we are a non-partisan Federal Government organisation. You can check out my profile; I’m not a politician. I came into this job as a technocrat and I’ve been in the advertising industry for over two and a half decades. So, I’m not a politician. The second thing is that we know that adverts of this nature are politically aligned and because of that, we need to act. The polity is already heated up and such an advert can even bring more heat. You can see the noise that the adverts have generated since Sunday to date. It could have led to another major national crisis and that is why communication of that nature should not have been allowed in the first place to get into the public because it winds up sentiment and it will divide us along political and religious lines.

What are the specific contents of the adverts that can cause unrest and breach public peace?

The first is ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’. Two, there was another one of the adverts that read, ‘We Want to Reclaim Our Mandate,’ meaning that somebody’s mandate was stolen, meanwhile, the judges have not ruled that anyone’s mandate was stolen; such a pronouncement has not been made. Saying that people want to reclaim their mandate is blackmailing. Let the judges be done, there’s a court process and there’s supposed to be a fair hearing. Now, if all these are coming out, you know again that this material was exposed in front of the Court of Appeal in Abuja. The other leg is that some people were already on the streets of Abuja carrying placards with the same inscriptions and before you realise it, something would just trigger unrest and it would become a national security issue. If we do not nib it in the bud, we will have another big national crisis to manage.

It was also stated that the Advertising Standard Panel did not approve the advertisements before they were exposed to the public. What is the standard procedure?

Now, two materials were forwarded to the ASP for approval, and out of the two materials sent, one was erroneously approved. I referred to it as being erroneous because the ASP did not do a detailed job. Again, that is why we are setting up a committee because there can be a political alignment, there can be anything, you know the way we are wired, we are all humans. If you are doing brand advertising, there are some rules and regulations that you need to abide by. If you are doing advertising, there are some rules and regulations you need to align with and there are some regulations that are common denominators to whatever advertising you are doing. Is it constitutional? Is it a breach of public peace and harmony? and many other things like that. The ASP erred in that aspect, too.

So, the one that was even exposed was different from the content that was erroneously approved. For example, the ASP insisted that the sponsors’ names must be on the material but the ones that were exposed to the public carried none of the names of the sponsors, meaning that they went to change the material, Thus, the other ones that were exposed were not even approved at all. Now, look at the unapproved material, they went ahead to put it in front of the Court of Appeal. Do you think that is not mischief on its own? So, we need to quickly intervene before it goes out of hand and ensure that we are able to restore sanity because before you realise it, this thing will go out of hand and we will have another national security issue that we’ll be tackling.

If the ASP didn’t approve the advertisements, how were the owners of the adverts able to put up their ad billboards across the country without official approval?

We are taking necessary actions against those billboard owners. Again, those people were saying that the ones that were erroneously approved for example were used but the truth is that those materials didn’t get approved in the first place. They attached approval for material A with material B and sent it out. We are going to sanction all the outdoor organisations that are involved. A letter of violation has been written to them and they’ll be taken before the Advertising Offences Tribunal.

Does this also mean that ARCON didn’t approve the advertisements before they went out?

They were not approved.

As the DG of ARCON, does your office get the contents of adverts across the country to be vetted before publication?

You know the way it is, we are going to appeal to the National Assembly now for a further review of our laws. ASP is an independent legal panel established under the law. As the DG of ARCON, I don’t have control or influence over ASP. ASP has representatives of all the industry’s stakeholders as well as other government regulatory agencies. They are the ones that sit down and look at adverts because the law wants to ensure that they are independent and that is why I did not dissolve the ASP. I only dissolved the ASP Secretariat which is the staff members that give administrative support to ASP. ASP is a creation of the law and they are independent by law.

Now, whenever they err, I’m the one that takes responsibility for their error and yet, I don’t have control or a say in what they do. They are an independent entity. You can check our laws, they are clearly written. However, anytime anything is wrong, it is the DG that will be called to bear it. So, we are putting up our report on it and we are going to approach the National Assembly to tackle this issue because there should be a supervisory role so that when things are happening, one can take responsibility for their actions and inactions but it is an independent panel established under the ARCON law and they don’t take directives from the DG. They are independent and they take decisions among themselves.

Some Nigerians believe if there’s a breach of the law and the adverts were mounted on billboards, ARCON should also take the blame. Do you agree?

Yes. That is why we dissolved the ASP and also suspended its directors because we needed to investigate and someone must take responsibility for it. That was why I came out to say that the adverts that were being exposed were not approved. However, there was also an erroneous approval of one. They erred because they didn’t align with the vetting guidelines. We came out to say that we were accepting responsibilities and that is why the director and deputy director, whose negligence caused all of this, were suspended. We are setting up a panel about this whole issue to confirm if there’s no mischief and what these are, thereby, making appropriate recommendations.

Some Nigerians believe that the dissolution of ASP and the suspension of its director and deputy director were done to make them scapegoats for ARCON. Do you have a different thought about this?

I don’t agree with that. Now, in the last few weeks, you would have been reading all our adverts about the huge challenge of monitoring advertisements in Nigeria’s media space or the traditional media. It is a huge responsibility and we have been calling out people, celebrities, and everything because these things have not just a moral implication. Some people have lost money and so many things. So, if we do not keep up the heat, we will not be able to get it right. Don’t just think or assume that advertising is just about putting something up. Open your phone in the morning and go to your Facebook page and see how many shenanigans are there. Imagine your child, who’s about seven years old, accesses Facebook and all he’s seeing is obscene adverts and so many levels of shenanigans out there. It is huge and the monitoring of the traditional and digital media hasn’t stopped. We have taken some people to court because of violations. What we are here discussing is an example, the adverts were not approved. We have seen situations whereby an advert was approved but they go ahead and change the elements of the adverts that were approved. Between the approved materials and exposed materials, you’ll see a clear difference. So how do you want to say it is overbearing? If we don’t put the heat out there, we’ll be playing a drastic game and we’ll be playing a catch-up game.

Are you saying the dissolution of the ASP Secretariat and suspension of its director and deputy director was not done to make scapegoats?

Nothing like scapegoats. You will only say scapegoats if they didn’t err. You’ll only say scapegoats if what they did, for example, could be justified. Do you know that the singular omission could cause national unrest and set the country on fire? So, where is the scapegoat here? We did not get them arrested, they were not fired, they were only asked to step down from those positions for the panel we’ll set up to conduct an investigation into what actually went wrong. They were not sacked, they were not dismissed. Sometimes, people overreact and sometimes, they cry more than the bereaved. Sometimes our people have their mindset and there’s nothing you want to say that will make sense. If somebody has done an act that is as big as that, should we just give them a slap on the wrist and say go back to your state?

Some also believe that the order to have the adverts brought down across the country and also the dissolution and suspension of ASP and its directors came from the President. Is it true President Bola Tinubu had something to do with the punitive actions taken?

Our people are extremely biased. Now, this advert has nothing to do with the presidency, I hope we all know this. These adverts have a lot to do with the judiciary; it has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency. I don’t know why they would say that the President asked us or the presidency asked us to punish them. How will the presidency interfere with this? The presidency has not at any point in time interfered in this issue. This is an administrative procedure. Someone erred and we looked at it to confirm that they erred and you did not fire them. The easiest thing to do is to give them a fair hearing and in the process of giving them a fair hearing, we are asking them to please step down from that offices they are occupying to be able to investigate properly. How does the presidency now come into this? The judiciary is supposed to be the one that they will say is influencing us and nobody in the judiciary has even made a statement on this. Don’t forget that there are other adverts worse than this on social media that we are even trying to track and pull down, posting some of these judiciary members’ names, their pictures on social media, and all of that. This has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency; the presidency has not interfered and I don’t think the presidency will interfere. The presidency is dealing with so many things and they have given each agency the independence to do their work.

I’ve not been summoned, I’ve not been requested to do anything. This is an administrative thing and except there’s something that they think should have been done by us and haven’t been done. They err, we suspended them from the office, and the people that are providing the administrative support, we said okay, leave that position and let us investigate because the omission could have caused us a lot. We will give you a fair hearing, appear before a committee, review the entire process and you’ll come back to us. The presidency has nothing to do with this.

ARCON also stated in its press release that the adverts are blackmailing against the judiciary. How?

There’s a case before the judiciary and the basic requirement is that this issue be left to be discussed. Now, this issue is a subject of discussion in different directions. I think we should all wait for them rather than putting up an advert, putting up social media posts, we don’t need to stampede them. All these actions are to stampede them into taking decisions. There’s another copy of this material that was saying, as I said earlier, that they want to reclaim their mandate. Now, by saying that, is the opposition not taking a position for the judiciary? Those adverts are complete blackmail and there’s no shortcut to it. Leave the judiciary, let them do their work, let all of us calm down, and let us wait for the verdict of the judiciary. If we are saying let us reclaim our mandate, it means that the person currently holding it isn’t entitled to it and that will be taking a position before the court rules; it is taking the judiciary themselves to a court of public opinion which shouldn’t be. They should be allowed to do their job.

Don’t you think this infringes on the advertisers’ right to freedom of expression?

No. No freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech is not absolute. Assuming that another group of people comes up again saying it is their mandate and we will not give it to the other group, do you understand what such a situation will be when we now have two oppositions putting adverts on the same issue? Before you realise it, it would cause another national issue. So, the freedom of speech is not absolute, your freedom of speech stops when it infringes on other people’s freedom of speech.

How do these advertisements pose a risk to the justices of the Presidential Election Petition Court in carrying out their duties without fear or favour?

In the first part, putting up an advert saying, ‘We want to reclaim our mandate’ and ‘All eyes on the judiciary’ is one part. The second part is that if we don’t arrest the situation, it could be blown out of proportion. Assuming the other party or their supporters also decided to put out another one and before you realise it, the entire public space will be littered with offensive counter adverts. Do you also realise that before you take a decision, it can also lead to another level of conversation which will lead to another unrest? So, we need to nip this in the bud and stop this blackmail in the best interest of national peace. The judiciary is yet to make a pronouncement, so, nobody is allowed by law to start making statements on their behalf with respect to the pronouncement.