This is Chukwudi Iwuchukwu's Blog: Obasanjo’s publisher Farafina Books approaches AIG Mbu for help as pirated copies of ‘My Watch’ goes on sale in the street (Photos)

Farafina Books have been faced with one hurdle after another since it published the widely anticipated biography by ex-Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo – My Watch.

According to the scoop The first major hurdle for the publishers was the December 10 embargo placed last year by Justice Valentine Ashi of a Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Apo, Abuja. Justice Ashi gave an injunction barring sales and distribution of the book following a complaint by PDP chieftain Buruji Kashamu that a part of the book related to the subject matter of a libel case he had earlier brought against the ex-president.

Last month, the judge finally set the injunction aside. He also barred the Nigerian Customs Service from collecting demurrage on the books for the period between December and April when the books were in its custody.

That was the beginning of the second hurdle for the publishers.

The customs service had placed the bulky books in privately owned warehouses. 3,000 copies of the books which came in December arrived Nigeria in December via the cargo wing of the Murtala International airport in Lagos were seized and kept in the warehouse of a cargo handling company – NAHCO Aviance. After the ban was lifted, NAHCO Aviance demanded for the sum of N9 million as demurrage.

Meanwhile, for the 15,000 copies of the book which were brought in by sea, a sum of N1.5million was demanded for by CGM CMA Delmas Nig. Ltd. – a shipping company – as payment for the failure to return their shipping container on time owing to the court ruling. Michelle Nigeria Ltd. also demanded that the publishers pay N1.5million for storage.

In all of this, the Nigerian Customs Service which was ordered to ensure that demurrage isn’t paid has been silent, allowing the publishers to sort things out themselves.

So far, according to Eghosa Imasuen, the managing director of Farafina Books, the publisher has been able to take delivery of the 3,000 books which came in via the Murtala Mohammed International Airport after negotiating with NAHCO and beating down the price from N9million to N2.1million.

Imasuen says they have been unable to clear the sea freighted copies of the books. “We do not have the money they are demanding. We have not paid the second part of the money,” he said.
However, shortly after the 3,000 copies were released to them this week, another hurdle surfaced in the form of pirates.

Imasuen told The Scoop that the pirates “had obtained a copy of the book from London and taken it to China where they made copies illegally and brought back to the country.” He expressed worry that the pirated books are already being sold on the streets at prices even more expensive than the original.

The Scoop noticed that the three books in the series are being sold by the pirates with some as low as N10,000 and some for as high as N65,000 for paperback copies.

Piracy is seen as the greatest threat to Nigeria’s book publishing industry, with some estimates claiming that up to two-thirds of the revenue in the publishing industry goes to the pirates.

Pirated and inferior copies of My Watch being sold on the streets)

(What the original paperback (left) and hard cover (right) copies look like)

Worried about the damaging effects piracy of the Olusegun Obasanjo autobiography could have on its bottom-line, Farafina books today released a statement enjoining Nigerians to shun the pirated copies.

The publishing company has already approached the Zone 2 command of the Nigerian Police Force under the leadership of AIG Joseph Mbu to solicit for the assistance and cooperation of the police in arresting the pirates and vendors who sell the books on the streets.

Imasuen told The Scoop that “any copy of My Watch you see in traffic is fake. We cannot sell that book in traffic.”