Raheem Akingbolu

Seven years after the leadership of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) cried out that major practitioners within the fold of the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of Nigeria’s (OAAN) and other vendors working for multinationals in Nigeria, were being owed N75 billion, which was put to be about 50 per cent of the industry’s N150 billion annual billings, the regulatory body has announced again that 9mobile, a telco company is allegedly owing a media buying agency a sum  N1 billion unpaid debt for advertising services.

With the announcement, stakeholders have expressed concern over the nonchalant attitude of stakeholders in the advertising ecosystem, lamenting multinationals’ incessant flouting of the rule of the business at will by deliberately delaying payment to their vendors beyond the agreed date. It was also alleged that what the companies push to the tables of Nigerian contractors could not be done in advanced markets.

Reacting to the ARCON’s announcement that it had opened an investigation into 9mobile over the alleged unpaid debt, following two formal complaints from industry stakeholders, a Mass Communication Lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State, Olalekan Ojo, applauded the regulatory body for being proactive, but urged the telco and the agency involved to meet and resolve their differences.

He said: “The news was shocking because I thought the emergence of the Advertising Industry Standard of Practice (AISOP) has set a new dawn in Nigeria’s advertising industry. AISOP seeks to improve mutual respect, eradicate unfair advantage, unethical competition and inequitable engagement terms between stakeholders in the Marketing Communications industry. The objective was to create a standard operating system that will galvanize advertising practice and the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) landscape as a whole. It is obvious that having a standard operating system is vital for any country’s advertising industry. This issue at hand concerning the N1 billion debt has shown that our industry is still low in corporate governance.”

Meanwhile, in the statement released by ARCON, which was signed by its Director-General, Olalekan Fadolapo, the regulatory body noted that two formal petitions have been filed against Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services Limited, trading as 9mobile, alleging the telco’s prolonged refusal to pay advertising debts despite having disengaged the indebted agencies and reportedly briefed new ones to continue business “with impunity.”