Prince Osuagwu
14 January 2009
THE Chief Executive Officer of Multimesh Communications limited, Chief Godfrey Ohuabunwa is pained that the good name he has built for himself over the years is on the verge of collapse by the duo of Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC and Entertainment Highway Africa, owners of HiTV Digital Satellite Television.
Ohuabunwa is so concerned that he has taken his case to the Attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, crying that he has been maligned by friends who allegedly connived to brand him a pirate broadcaster for a business that began with clings of wine glasses and in a tête-à-tête mood as friends.
But the CEO of HiTV, Mr Toyin Subair says Ohuabunwa is crying wolf where there is none. For him, the Multimesh boss wanted to mix friendship with business and ignored the basic tenets of business transaction, and therefore deserved whatever came to him.
However, Ohuabunwa's complaint was that Officials of the Commission acted on the complaints of Entertainment Highway, right owners of the English Premiere League, EPL, which claimed that Multimesh was pirating its property with their various stations across the country, to stormed its Calabar operations in commando style, forced customers and workers to lie on the floor while they forcefully take away the company's transmit equipment, damaging quite a number in the process.
Because of this action, Ohuabunwa is saying that the NCC which was always copied in most of their communications with Entertainment Highway has failed to play a neutral role in helping to bring the two companies together to resolve their misunderstanding.
He maintains the opinion that boss of Entertainment Highway, Mr Subair, was using his relationship with the NCC DG, Mr Adebambo Adewopo, to intimidate another Nigerian company.
In a petition to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the federation, Hon. Mike Aondaokaa, dated 8th January 2009, Ohuabunwa complained that "On Thursday, the 8th of January 2009, a team of armed mobile police men in the company of Mr. Ajala from the Nigerian Copyrights Commission in Lagos stormed our Television Station in Calabar, broke into our offices and safe and carted away our transmitters, computers, files, invoices, receipt booklets and various other valuables and shut down our station, on the guise of a false complaint by Hitv Ltd,"
He explained that as the second largest MMDS cable company licensed by the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, NBC, to carry out the business of broadcasting and with a subsisting three year agreement with Hitv Ltd to retransmit the English Premier League in South South and South East of Nigeria, with initial take off in Rivers State, he couldn't be a pirate.
"For the purpose of Clarity, we have a subsisting three years agreement with Hitv and have paid for the rights for Rivers State; we have provided Hitv a N30, 000, 000 (Thirty Million Naira) Bank Guarantee with another N18, 000, 000 upfront payment made into their account with GTB. We are not pirates as falsely reported by Mr. Toyin Subair," Ohuabunwa stated in part of the letter.
He however said he was ready at all times to provide evidence of financial transactions and relationship which he had had with Subair and his Entertainment Highway Limited.
Appealing to the Minister for a personal intervention, Ohuabunwa pointed out that what happened was that since the initial execution of the agreement and payments made to Hitv Ltd, the two companies have had lingering misunderstanding over the rebroadcast rights and channel carriage license. The development, he said was reported to the NCC and the NBC and even when the latter tried to intervene, Subair was not forthcoming.
Ohuabunwa expressed disappointment that even the DG of NCC, who from the inception of the relationship was intimated with all the developments chose not to do anything but instead sent people to raid his office.
He expressed worry that if HiTV was allowed to get away with such attitudes because he has a good relationship with the NCC DG, the company would turn into another strict monopoly and exclusivity which are in sharp contrast with the NBC laws.
"My Lord, we are of the strong opinion that Mr. Toyin Subair and Management of Hitv and Highway Entertainment Ltd are deliberately harassing us and other cable operators in Nigeria in their greedy plan to maintain monopoly and exclusivity in airing the English Premier League (EPL) in Nigeria, which is completely against the National Broadcasting Code and the Federal Government Policy in deregulating and deepening the broadcast industry in Nigeria.
He is perpetuating this plan by using Government agencies like NCC (Nigerian Copyrights Commission) to legitimatize his actions under the guise of "piracy," he further stated in the letter.
Ohuabuwa alleged that some of the arbitration processes stipulated in the contract were never followed. He said these included two clauses under Dispute Resolution in contract which states that :
Any arbitration of disputes arising out of or in connection with this agreement shall be conducted in accordance with the arbitration rules of Multi-Door (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Court House in Lagos effect at the time of arbitration.
(e) The Parties agree that during the arbitration proceedings, they shall continue to observe and perform their respective obligations under this Agreement, except for those arising from the provisions subject to or involved in arbitration.
But Subair all Ohuabunwa was doing was mere grandstanding. For him, there was no contract nor agreement in the first place but negotiations which Ohuabunwa and his company never saw to the conclusion.
According to him, what happened was that when we won the rights to air European Premiership League, we decided to extend the rights to others in Nigeria so they can retransmit. We called them to a meeting asked those interested to give us a bank guarantee for one year and pay us the money we would agree to, in advance. Multimesh was one of the companies that came into negotiation with us but they negotiated their way to three months bank guarantee and gave us a postdated cheque for retransmitting in Port Harcourt. But before the cheque could mature they came to cancel it and that was the end of that transaction.
So when they came back, we decided that we would not accept a post dated cheque from them again and that before any payment, they would sign proper agreement with us. Up till now that agreement was not signed but instead they went to pay some amount into our account without a covering note. We were to find out later and asked them to take their money back having instructed our bank to do so. Meanwhile all this was for Port Harcourt transmission.
But what happened was that we found out they have been retransmitting in both Port Harcourt, Bayelsa and Cross River in illegality, so we made a criminal complaint to NCC which is the appropriate authority. Let it be on record that we did not give them rights and they don't have agreements with us" he added.
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