Author, publisher and JAMB in three-way tussle over royalty claims

Thirty four-year old, Dr. Ayobami Mohammed is the author of the novel ‘The Last Days at Forcados High School’. But beyond the relative success of the book which has enjoyed the patronage of the examination body  the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Mohammed is aggrieved, and like his lawyer, Ajayi Fatoki said, the court […]

Thirty four-year old, Dr. Ayobami Mohammed is the author of the novel ‘The Last Days at Forcados High School’. But beyond the relative success of the book which has enjoyed the patronage of the examination body  the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Mohammed is aggrieved, and like his lawyer, Ajayi Fatoki said, the court of law now remains the final arbiter to calm Muhammed’s frayed nerve.

The bone of contention, Mohammed said, is the alleged breach of intellectual property by his publisher, Mrs Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic Press. And while the suit against the publisher with case file no: FHC/L/ CS/ 341/17 has been instituted before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on March 8th, 2017, the author’s lawyer said the move is also on to sue the examination body as well.

At a recent press briefing in Lagos, the author narrated how the book became a mandatory literature for candidates preparing to write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) which is being conducted by JAMB.  He said the contention today revolves around nonpayment of N3.5m which was part of royalty he was meant to have been paid, non-renewal of contract and being short-changed on his intellectual property.

He recalled that he had signed a three-year agreement with Cassava Republic Press in 2010 before JAMB showed interest in adopting it in 2014. He said under the agreement, the publisher agreed to be paying him eight percent as royalties on sale. He added that when the book was adopted by Faunwa Foundation with JAMB subsequently adopting it as the literature text for its candidates, the publisher issued an addendum to the term of agreement, which saw to the reduction of royalties accruing to him as author to 4.5 percent for each sale that goes for N450.

Mohammed further alleged that while a total of 1.7 million copies of the book were sold in the 2014/15 academic session for UTME candidates, he received payment for only 1.2 million copies.

“I wrote this book when I was an undergraduate at the University of Lagos, I sent my manuscript to my publisher and we both signed an agreement. And the interest that JAMB took in the book, the agreement spans from 2014-2017. But in 2014/2015 session, I was paid N24m out of the percent accruing to me, the remaining N3.6m as balance of my royalties, is yet to be paid,” he said.

The author also said that in the 2015/2016 session, the publisher did not remit his share and also refused to make available copies of the agreement they entered with JAMB, adding that in this present JAMB curriculum, his publication has been short-changed.

“On the 26th of January 2017, I was invited by the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede to an informal meeting in Abuja. That was where he opened up to me that my book will no longer be used by the examination body. But with an advert they ran in the Tuesday edition of the Punch Newspaper, my book was recognized for Direct Entry applicants contrary to the agreement because it was meant for secondary school leavers seeking admission to tertiary institutions,” he said.

Mohammed however appealed to the publisher and JAMB to honour the terms of the agreement and revert necessary items that are contrary to the term of agreement.

But in a six-page statement issued by the publisher, a copy of which was made available to journalists in Lagos, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf denied allegations of ever forcing the author into signing a contract with the publishing firm, nonpayment of his royalties and failure to provide access to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with JAMB.

“In our ten-year history as a company, we have never knowingly withheld an author’s royalty payments or not acted in the best interest of our authors. We are confident that our authors will attest to this fact.  It is only because we are bound by confidentiality, respect for our author and the current legal process that we cannot show evidence of full payment made to the author.  

“It is defamatory on our company’s reputation for the author to claim that we have not paid him his royalties since 2014 or forced him into signing an agreement negotiated by his mother and lawyer. This is blatantly untrue. In relation to JAMB, there is only one royalty payment outstanding. 

“I hope this clarifies the Cassava Republic version of events.  We would be only too happy to provide further clarification, with the caveat that we are currently in an arbitration process and therefore are limited as to the information we can share with the media. It is indeed strange and unfortunate that the author has ‘gone public’ in the middle of a process he began, but this is his prerogative. We are confident that our company has behaved honourably throughout the process,” a part of the publisher’s statement read.

Similarly, spokesperson of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin said since the author said he is planning to drag JAMB to court, the examination body will not want to discuss such on the pages of newspapers “as no responsible and law-abiding institution will do that.”

However, another top official of the examination board, who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said the author has no case against JAMB.

“Let’s pick it from here. JAMB doesn’t know this man if we are to apply the law of contract. We don’t even deal with individual authors. We deal with their publishers. In the case of this man and his book, we have no contract with him or did he say we had a contract or any agreement with him? But why our Registrar summoned him to a meeting recently was because he was having issues with his publisher and the registrar felt he can mediate between the two of them. That does not mean that we now have a business with him.

“On the book he was talking about, what happened was that the previous ones we got, courtesy of his publisher are still in our store. We have over 1.3 million copies with us. And how do you expect us to start asking for the supply of more copies of your book when the ones we have in store are not yet exhausted? So what the management thought wise to do in this regard was to introduce it to Universities because we all know that Direct Entry (DE) applicants don’t write UTME. 

“But respective universities do conduct interviews for the candidates; hence we sought the Universities’ partnership to ensure that some of the questions they may ask will have to do with the book, through that, the prospective DE applicants would need to buy the book and we can offset our store,” the source said.

“If he alleged that there are other books from his publishers that we have taken, that is because the contract we have with the publisher spelt it out that way. In the agreement we have with the publisher, there is a specific number of books we asked for and these were what we paid for. So, he has no case he can press against us. We should even be the ones to sue him for dragging our name into this even when we had no contract with him,” he concluded.