Mohbad: Lagos Govt Moves To Create Laws For Artistes’ Royalties

The Lagos State Government on Thursday said that legislative measures were being developed to enable Nigerian musicians to get their complete royalties from record labels.

Mrs. Toke Benson-Awoyinka, the Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts, and Culture, revealed this information in an interview with members of the Association of Nigerian Journalists and Writers of Tourism (ANJET) in Lagos.

Benson-Awoyinka addressed the crowd in the wake of Nigerian musician Ilerioluwa Aloba, also referred to as Mohbad, who passed away too soon after being refused access to royalties purportedly kept by the owner of his record company.

One of the commissioner’s strategies, according to her, is to make the entertainment sector more alluring to aspiring performers.

“One of the focal areas that we will be looking into in the ministry is the music industry. We need to clean it up and set the artists on the right path.

“We need to bring the law into our system, we don’t want the case of Mohbad happening again in Lagos.

“This is because we have learned a good lesson that as a government, we must also learn to play our part. In that space, we will do the necessary things.

“We will help in looking into the artists’ legal agreement and documentation. There is no point in being a rising star and having only 15 percent right to my music.

“Mohbad died young, the whole world is listening to his music and somebody is benefiting from his royalties, who is not his family and this shouldn’t be so. We as government will take it upon ourselves to make sure that doesn’t happen again to any other child in Lagos,” she said.