President of the Performing Musicians' Employers Association of Nigeria (PMAN), Pretty Okafor of the Junior and Pretty fame, has disclosed things he will do to take the association from its crisis state to an enviable one.

The musicians' body in Nigeria has been in crisis for years over leadership tussle.

Pretty, addressing newsmen in Lagos recently to mark his 100 days in office, said he was interested in the leadership of PMAN because of the genuine development he wants to bring to the group.

Among other things he hopes to do, Pretty is bent of fighting piracy and making artistes get reward for their efforts.

He has now introduced a system where artistes would relax and get money for their hardwork after the release of their albums. Pretty got some financial institution in Nigeria to partner with PMAN and a Biometric Card Scheme initiated that will beneficial to members of PMAN.

Pretty explained that the new plan of action is to secure and protect artistes' income and benefits, adding that all what members need to do is to register with the partnering banks to get their PMAN biometric ID cards. He listed the banks as UBA, Diamond, Heritage and FCMB.

He further explained that once a musician's work is ready, he uploads it into the PMAN newly protected database, which will be then be transferred to MDN/GS1.

According to him, the GS1 (Global System 1), which operates in 110 countries, encodes the songs or video works for 1000 naira per song and then the MDN forwards the encoded and bar coded works straight to the replicating plants, who then push out multiple copies with the barcodes and encoding in place at a costs of N8 per CD.

Pretty further said that the replicating plants also forward the works straight to the NIPOST office in Lagos, which will then distribute to 1, 500 NIPOST offices nationwide.

“NIPOST will also distribute these CDs to 50,000 MTN music distribution Hubs nationwide, so we have a total of 51,500 hubs just waiting for the release date of the musician.

“On the release date, everyone can buy the artistes' CD anywhere as well as the marketers. No record label has to spend excess money on distribution due to PMAN new spread system.

“The benefiting factor here is that, at the end of the day, the artiste gets his/her money in bulk, and is still able to keep track of how many CDs were sold, as a record account will be made available and traceable,” he explained.

Pretty added that, “All funds on sales of CD's go straight into the artiste PMAN Current account via one of PMAN sponsored banks. That is the essence of the new PMAN special Biometric Bank Card.
“If an artiste is below 18, his/her legal guardian will have to stand as their Power of Attorney in handle his/her account.

“Benefits include but not limited to: health plan that covers the artiste and four members of his family, life insurance of up to N10 million, permanent disabilities and terminal illnesses and retirement pension plan of up to N100,000 monthly.”