During the raid, bookshop owners abandoned their shops and fled the market for fear of being arrested by the police team working with the NCC. About seven bookshop owners were however arrested along with the seized materials.
According to the Director of Enforcement, NCC, Mr. Augustine Amodu, the raid on bookshops was at the request of the Bible Society of Nigeria.
He said: “The commission is bent on sustaining its zero tolerance for piracy. It is unfortunate to note that the Nigerian society did not understand what piracy is all about. Other people are reaping from where they did not sow, but we are bent on fighting piracy to a halt.
“We have seized Bibles, dictionaries and other books worth N3m in Calabar and this will be a continuous process. We do not just accept receipts of materials allegedly got from genuine publishers. If their good are genuine, we will release them. These traders mix genuine and fake materials. We cannot stand in the market and determine real and fake. The traders are smart these days.”
Amodu, citing section 38 of the Copyright Act, said the commission had the power to prosecute culprits, adding that necessary steps would be taken to bring those found wanting to book.
Some of them insisted that they bought the alleged pirated books from known publishers but Amodu opined that some of the bookshop owners had mastered the act of mixing genuine copies of the seized products with pirated ones.
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