BrandiQ Report
There are strong indications that the much anticipated re-constitution of the governing council of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), may happen in no distant time from now.
If current signals emanating from Iganmu Lagos secretariat of the Council is anything to go by, the Federal government has issued fresh assurances that the governing council of APCON would be re-constituted in a few weeks from now.
The APCON Acting Registrar Mrs Ijedi Iyoha in a recent chat with BrandiQ quoted the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed as saying that plans had reached conclusive stages on the planned re-constitution of the governing council.
The Council boss who confirmed she met with the Minister lately explained that plans on re-constituting the governing council had been on the pipeline, but it had suffered setbacks due to economic lockdown in the country occasioned by the scourge of the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to her, with the ongoing gradual easing of the economic lock down by the government it is hoped that activities would soon pick up all over the country and APCON’s governing council would reconstituted very soon.
“It is work in progress and the Minister has given us an assurance just last week. I met with him and he said as soon as possible, very soon. You know because of the pandemic so many things were slowed down, but now they have started working on it again, so in a couple of weeks from now, God willing, we will get a council”
“You know we don’t have a Council now, but the Minister is doing everything within his limit to ensure that we get a Council as soon as possible. It is a work in progress and that would possibly take Care of whatever the pandemic must have caused”
APCON, the apex regulatory institution for Nigeria’s advertising industry had operated with no substantive governing council manning its affairs especially since advent of the President Mohammadu Buhari led administration in 2015.
The government on assumption of office in 2015 effected a dissolution of all government parastatals under the ministries.
APCON Council then under Chairmanship of Mr Udeme Ufot, Group CEO of SO&U was disrupted following which the Council had operated with no substantive governing body despite all overtures by industry stakeholders to resuscitate the council.
In a bid to sensitize public interest on the need to re-constitute the governing council, stakeholders across the sector last year organized the first ever national conference on advertising that held in the federal capital territory Abuja.
