NAFEST 2011: OKOROJI TO PRESENT LEAD PAPER

COSON Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji

Chairman, Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) Chief Tony Okoroji will present the Lead Paper at the Colloquium of the National Festival of Arts & Culture (NAFEST) which holds on Wednesday, October 26 at the Cultural Centre Complex in Calabar. Chief Okoroji will be leading three other discussants from different Nigerian universities to x ray the theme of the colloquium in the Canaan City which is Nigerian Traditional Music: A Vehicle for Economic Transformation and Unity.

The lead paper from Chief Okoroji, a celebrated past president of PMAN is expected to look at the economic enhancement capacity of traditional music, the limitations faced by practitioners in a global market, ownership of traditional music forms and challenges of royalty payment, music as a vehicle for national unity, retrieval/documentation of disappearing forms of traditional music, etc.

Chief Tony Okoroji, author of the book, Copyright & the New Millionaires and one of the nation’s foremost experts on intellectual property is expected to dwell extensively on issues of intellectual property rights and collective management of rights in the digital age.

Senator Hassan Barata, Chairman, Senate Committee on Culture and Tourism will be Special Guest of Honour while Hon. Ben Nwankwo, House Committee Chairman on Culture and Tourism is the Guest of Honour at the Colloquium proceedings which will be chaired by Chief Segun Olusola.

All 36 States of the Federation and the FCT are expected to participate in this year’s National Festival of Arts and Culture. The festival is also expected to attract stakeholders from the academia, non-governmental organizations as well as individual promoters of Nigerian arts and culture.

The Festival Colloquium is the intellectual platform of the National Festival for Arts and Culture, the festival that unites the nation. It is the forum for discourse, analysis and suggested best practices on the presentation and promotion of Nigerian cultural industries and products.