A contractor, Olufemi Oniyide, said he has written an official complaint to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State on the alleged intellectual property theft by the Oyo State government.
Oniyide said this was more in the case of the Oyo State Commissioner for Works and Transport, Prof. Raphael Afonja, with respect to the recently inaugurated Park Management System in the state.
The official complaint, dated February 25, 2020, signed by Oniyide’s lawyer, Olamiji Martins of MarVic Alpha Legal Practitioners, insisted that the Oyo State PMS was an idea originally conceived and made available to the state government on October 2, 2019 by the contractor.
According to the letter stamped received by the office of the Chief Security Officer to Makinde, the contractor specifically alleged that Afonja officially broke the news via WhatsApp that the proposal his company submitted had been given out to another consultant.
The letter added that when the contractor threatened to approach the court of law to seek redress for the unlawful conversion and infringement on his intellectual property, the Commissioner replied that the state government was considering breaking the implementation of the proposal into zones and split it further into local governments.
Martins also disclosed that his client’s partners in the United Kingdom, who were willing to work with the Oyo State Government, upon getting wind of this development on the internet have withdrawn from further interactions with the state government and indeed any Nigerian Government, adding that the proposal “stolen” was developed in line with what is obtainable in Western climes, describing the government’s action as a bad impression sent to prospective foreign investors.
The contractor, however, demanded for N500 million for the intellectual property right infringement allegedly perpetrated by the Makinde-led government and for deprecating his goodwill and honour both home and abroad.
The letter reads in part: “We feel compelled to write Your Excellency for some reasons: first is to give background information about our client’s involvement with your government and the history associated with this matter. Second is to demand for justice and to expose internal wrangling in your government for it has long been settled that once a wrong has been established, then remedy should follow suit.
“It is however unfortunate that powerful interests within Your Excellency’s government deceptively collected our client’s proposal, packaged it as theirs and sold it to Your Excellency to gain favour. We strongly believe that our client will get justice if this letter is brought to Your Excellency ‘s attention.
“Knowing full well that this is the last known administrative route our client can take in respect of the above, we are compelled further to inform Your Excellency to consider the goodwill it has been enjoying among the people thus far and give this matter the needed urgent attention it deserves. We were duly informed and it was actually confirmed that some media houses have blown this matter open for public consumption. Your Excellency, the public is keenly following this matter with vivid attention waiting to see how well Your Excellency will serve justice to helpless companies as our client’s.
“Our client informed us that all efforts to get in touch with the principal actors who were instrumental in the intellectual theft of our client’s proposal met frustration and our client’s efforts to seek direct audience with Your Excellency proved abortive hence we made it a point of duty to write you. All our client had asked us to pray for is to be served justice. And justice we hope Your Excellency will serve. “We have the instructions of our client to put the records straight on its behalf and for the sake of posterity. We will briefly narrate the surrounding incidents and how your government has infringed upon the intellectual property rights of our client.
“Our client informed us that it wrote a proposal on Parks and Garages to your office which was submitted through the office of the Chief of Staff to the Oyo State Governor. The said letter headed “Consultancy/Proposal for the Establishment of the Oyo State Parks and Garages Agency” and attached with executive summary dated 27th September 2019 and received by the office of the Chief of Staff to the Oyo State Governor on 2nd October 2019 is hereby annexed as ANNEXURE A.
“Our client further informed us that after submitting the said letter, it got wind of the information that the proposal has been forwarded to the office of Professor Raphael Afonja the Hon. Commissioner for Public Works, Infrastructure and Transportation.
“All things being equal our client’s representatives spoke on phone with the Honourable Commissioner for Public Works, Infrastructure and Transportation, Professor Raphael Afonja who asked our client’s representatives for a further summary of the project. The Honourable Commissioner told our client’s representatives not to put the said summary on our client’s letterhead paper. Our client’s representatives were cautious of doing this but was encouraged to do so. Our client consequentially sent a two page summary to the Hon. Commissioner who promised to present it at the State Executive Council meeting. He specifically instructed our client’s representatives to indicate in the summary that there are other consultants so that Your Excellency can instruct him to go and pick “one” which will be our client. All this was on phone. After this was done, the Commissioner shut the door of communication between himself and our client’s representatives.
“Overtly taken aback by the unexplainable taciturnity of the Honourable Commissioner, our client informed us that on the 5th January 2020 one of its representatives visited the Honourable Commissioner in his office. He instructed our client’s representative to go to Oyo State Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) to check whether the proposal has been minuted to it. Our client went and was told the proposal had been minuted to it since 19th October 2019. Our client went back to the Commissioner’s office on 6th of January 2020 but he reluctantly attended to them after he kept them waiting for hours.
“The Honourable Commissioner told our client that though it had put forward a very implementable proposal, he further told our client’s representatives that their proposal might be “given” to another consultant to implement. This prompted our client to demand why another consultant should implement what’s not his original idea. All the Honourable Commissioner did was to release his United States mobile phone number to our client’s representative to chat him up on WhatsApp promising to look more into it.
“Carrying no coals to Newcastle, our client informed us that around 3 AM of 7th January 2020 the Hon. Commissioner officially broke the news to them via WhatsApp that the proposal had been given out to another consultant. When our client threatened to approach the court of law to seek redress for the unlawful conversion and infringement of its intellectual property, the Hon. Commissioner replied that Oyo State government is considering breaking the implementation of the proposal into zones and splitted into local governments. Our client further informed us that thereafter it heard nothing from the Commissioner again until news broke out about Oyo State government’s implementing of the Park Management System which is a direct brainchild of our client. Funny enough, it was the same Hon. Commissioner of Transport who unveiled the plan to the public as made available on the internet. The name was slightly moderated and all the modus operandi of our client with respect to the park managers and others were completely adapted.
“Your Excellency, need we go as far as Beijing to establish the fact that the Hon. Commissioner played a fast one on our client knowing full well that he was going to be fully in charge of the Park Management System but rather deceived our client into believing that the work will be awarded to consultants? He was even instrumental in putting people across the local governments to supervise the project and was all about rabble rousing with our client and draining them of their intellectual property. Everything done by the Hon. Commissioner with respect to the Park Management System is obvious on the face of the annexed proposal our client submitted to your Chief of Staff and which was minuted to the Hon. Commissioner. Our client suspects that its proposal might have been hijacked by some interests within Your Excellency’s government including Honourable Commissioner Professor Raphael Afonja.”
The State Government had on Wednesday said the idea was totally its.
In a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, the government said the idea was not stolen from anywhere.
The statement said Oniyide’s proposal came after the implementation of the idea had begun.
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