APCON to Fed Govt: constitute our council

Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

ADVERTISING Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) at the weekend urged Federal Government to constitute its council.

It said the failure of the Federal Government to constitute its council had been a challenge.

The council noted that though some corporations’ boards and councils were experiencing the same fate.

APCON Acting Registrar, Mrs Ijedi Iyoha, mad e the plea on the side-lines of an empowerment programme organised by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Culture, Olusegun Odebunmi.

The programme was called “Capacity Building for Youth Empowerment on Advertising Practice”.

Mrs. Iyoha said: “Since about seven years, APCON has not had a constituted council. It is a big challenge for us. We have done everything humanly possible to ensure the council is constituted. But it is the decision of the Federal Government.”

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On quackery in advertising practice in Nigeria, the registrar said: “APCON, as a professional body, has mechanisms to check quacks. We have advertising standards panel that ensures that any material that is being exposed is cleared by us. If in the course of our monitoring we notice that some materials are not cleared, we have a means of sanctioning the media, agency or advertiser concerned.

“For those practising without adequate registration, there is a sanction for that. We have been talking, sensitising the people. We have held so many public lectures, seminars and fora on the need to be registered as a practitioner before you can practise. It is there in our law that if you practise illegally, you have to be fined or sanctioned.

“What we are doing presently is to organise public lectures for people to do the right thing. But you see, with our media people, most of them like putting money above ethics. Most of them compromise standards. We have been pleading with them that it is not healthy for the profession.”