December 12, 2024 • 12 mins
Before the invasion and plundering of the African Civilization and territories by Colonial Forces of the Northern Hemispheres. African Societies had (and still have) their unique systems of political and creative-innovative outcomes governance. In continuation from Episode 1 I highlight some of the practical methods that Africans used in managing/enforcing their innovations-creations.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, welcome to episode two of the African Intellectual Property Jurisprudence podcast.
(00:12):
I am Samiai.
Now we're going to continue today from episode one.
In episode one we did a little bit of an overview of what we're trying to do in this podcast channel.
We're trying to make visible and also reinforce and enhance what I call the African Intellectual
(00:40):
Property Jurisprudence.
So today I'm going to specifically discuss a little bit of the practical and existing
expressive methods that most of the African peoples, the indigenous African people had
(01:05):
with them before Western ideological or Western jurisprudential bent was made dominant, so
to say.
So now the detail of this podcast, the content will be available for subscription in later
(01:30):
episodes, but let's take advantage of this free and also general edition.
So I'm going to use an example that we in Africa had before, in quote, the white man
invaded our territories before slave trade, before colonization, and before the historical
(01:56):
events that happened in the continent of Africa and most of the global south.
So in most, I'm going to use Nigeria here and Kenya and Tanzania a little bit here.
So before the civilization, our civilization was invaded, we had our own political regimes
(02:20):
and if you are familiar with intellectual property, you will realize that intellectual
property is interconnected with political systems and the larger legal systems of each country,
each nation.
So the African communities are their sovereignty.
The sovereignty was actually segregated from the grassroots up to a form what I call a
(02:49):
pyramidal system of governance.
So we had the committees, the groups, family systems, family political hierarchy that controlled
and managed societies from the family.
We had the clan, from the clan, we had the larger groups of communities.
(03:10):
So if there was a problem in a community, the elders of the family are obligated to
deal with that situation.
If they couldn't deal with it, they pushed up the ladder to the clan, from the clan,
you now go to the larger community, hierarchical system.
So different communities have different names for the sovereigns, the unit sovereigns in
(03:36):
the family, head of families, a ter, for instance in the Bibyaland, you had oba, you have
chiefs, you have, there was a lot of nomenclatures used.
So this, how does, is that relevant to intellectual property management or intellectual property
(03:59):
governance?
I'm going to show you that in those times, and it still exists now in some of these communities
I'm talking about in Nigeria, it exists in Ghana, it exists, that we had societies, societies
that magnified our cultural, indigenous and traditional cultural expressions.
(04:24):
I mentioned in episode one, Eyo, E-Y-O.
Eyo is a traditional, mostly found in the western Nigeria, in the Lagos area, Eyo masquerade.
We had NCDB, NCDB.
NCDB is a graphic method, a secret method of communication that those people use to communicate
(04:49):
amongst themselves, it's a kind of a creative system of how they communicated.
And it's popular now by a lot of artists, Victor Eqwuk is one of the forefront now, who
does his art in that form.
And we had things like Eqwuk, E-K-P-O, Eqwuk masquerade in the southwestern region of,
(05:13):
southeastern region of Nigeria.
We had societies like Eqwuk in still the south-south, southeastern part of Nigeria.
These are examples of how the political system protected and managed cultural expressions.
(05:34):
So it is through this political system that they use their regime, their jurisprudence,
their indigenous jurisprudence to make you not encroach, make you not infringe.
Because if you are not a member, for example, if you are not a member of the Eqwuk masquerade
(05:56):
society, you couldn't use their methods of creativity.
You couldn't use those creative methods.
You couldn't even wear their attire, their fashion.
So see, these are traditional indigenous to the global south, IE, peoples of, representing
(06:20):
Nigeria.
So if you take it now to the contemporary intellectual property that has been dominant
or that has been propagated in a dominant western fashion, you will see that there are
all similar traits.
There are all in terms of the definition, descriptions of what is legal or enforceable
(06:48):
in copyright or in terms of what is enforceable in patents.
You see that these peoples of the global south of Africa, of Nigeria, still have similar
characteristics, similar eligibility metrics of the present day intellectual property jurisprudence.
(07:14):
So why then can't we recognize the traditional cultural expressive metrics or traditional
cultural expressive designs of this indigenous art, of all these indigenous works?
(07:35):
So you see that now it is my position and it is of others that yes, we adopt a sugeranist,
meaning a specialized jurisprudence, or we have to recognize the fact that we have to
key in the existing traditional systems into the contemporary.
(07:58):
For instance, they recently agreed upon accession to the WIPO, traditional knowledge treaties
and genetic regimes of properties that recently occurred.
(08:21):
Although it took so long, but it's the right step that we are taking.
So why don't we extend it also quickly into this TCE, meaning the traditional cultural
expression.
So briefly, that is what I intended to do in these short minutes today to show that we
(08:44):
had a system, there exists a system, there still exists that system where the indigenous
people of the developing economies or the global south had, which is just similar to
what we have now.
So the nuances of contemporary legal construct like public domain, this thing has been in
(09:11):
public domain, therefore we can't protect it.
We have idea, expression, dichotomy, therefore copyright cannot enforce it.
Well we could sit down again and create our own African intellectual property jurisprudence.
That's what I keep saying.
So if there is a way that it can be done by turning a legal abstract and make it convince
(09:38):
able, why don't African scholars, African experts, IPS experts also develop their own jurisprudence
by making this construct, developing this construct.
So I think we should start thinking deeply.
I know there's been a lot of talk on this issue.
I'm just joining the voice.
I'm one of the voices out here now saying that, yeah, let us not tarry, let us not slow
(10:07):
it down now.
Let's continue making the case.
Let's be more of crusaders in this field.
So I will close by also referring because I think I'm talking too much about Nigeria.
Yes, I was born in Nigeria so I have a lot of knowledge about this and my research also
(10:31):
does a lot about Nigeria.
But you see also that in Kenya and not in Tanzania, we have the cases of the Masai people
whose fashion has been misappropriated for a long time.
So you ask yourself, what is that technique?
What mechanism has made the fashion, the fabric that the Masai people has or had been using
(10:59):
for a long time that made it so interesting that they return a lot of fashion people of
this fashion industrial spaces of Europe, of North America, of the Western Hemisphere,
or the Northern Hemisphere.
What kept that fabric to be that catchy to the eyes to even give the investors from this
(11:30):
big industrial basis to now see it enough to adapt it into their own fashion system
and make so much money out of it.
So there is that intellectual property, that intellectual property from the Masai people.
They got it from their forebears.
(11:51):
It's traditional.
It's indigenous.
It belongs to them.
It belongs to us.
So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.
I hope you will check out this platform, this podcast, African Intellectual Property
Students.
(12:12):
I am Sami I.
Reporting.
Thank you.
Hello, welcome to episode two of the African Intellectual Property Jurisprudence podcast.
(00:12):
I am Samiai.
Now we're going to continue today from episode one.
In episode one we did a little bit of an overview of what we're trying to do in this podcast channel.
We're trying to make visible and also reinforce and enhance what I call the African Intellectual
(00:40):
Property Jurisprudence.
So today I'm going to specifically discuss a little bit of the practical and existing
expressive methods that most of the African peoples, the indigenous African people had
(01:05):
with them before Western ideological or Western jurisprudential bent was made dominant, so
to say.
So now the detail of this podcast, the content will be available for subscription in later
(01:30):
episodes, but let's take advantage of this free and also general edition.
So I'm going to use an example that we in Africa had before, in quote, the white man
invaded our territories before slave trade, before colonization, and before the historical
(01:56):
events that happened in the continent of Africa and most of the global south.
So in most, I'm going to use Nigeria here and Kenya and Tanzania a little bit here.
So before the civilization, our civilization was invaded, we had our own political regimes
(02:20):
and if you are familiar with intellectual property, you will realize that intellectual
property is interconnected with political systems and the larger legal systems of each country,
each nation.
So the African communities are their sovereignty.
The sovereignty was actually segregated from the grassroots up to a form what I call a
(02:49):
pyramidal system of governance.
So we had the committees, the groups, family systems, family political hierarchy that controlled
and managed societies from the family.
We had the clan, from the clan, we had the larger groups of communities.
(03:10):
So if there was a problem in a community, the elders of the family are obligated to
deal with that situation.
If they couldn't deal with it, they pushed up the ladder to the clan, from the clan,
you now go to the larger community, hierarchical system.
So different communities have different names for the sovereigns, the unit sovereigns in
(03:36):
the family, head of families, a ter, for instance in the Bibyaland, you had oba, you have
chiefs, you have, there was a lot of nomenclatures used.
So this, how does, is that relevant to intellectual property management or intellectual property
(03:59):
governance?
I'm going to show you that in those times, and it still exists now in some of these communities
I'm talking about in Nigeria, it exists in Ghana, it exists, that we had societies, societies
that magnified our cultural, indigenous and traditional cultural expressions.
(04:24):
I mentioned in episode one, Eyo, E-Y-O.
Eyo is a traditional, mostly found in the western Nigeria, in the Lagos area, Eyo masquerade.
We had NCDB, NCDB.
NCDB is a graphic method, a secret method of communication that those people use to communicate
(04:49):
amongst themselves, it's a kind of a creative system of how they communicated.
And it's popular now by a lot of artists, Victor Eqwuk is one of the forefront now, who
does his art in that form.
And we had things like Eqwuk, E-K-P-O, Eqwuk masquerade in the southwestern region of,
(05:13):
southeastern region of Nigeria.
We had societies like Eqwuk in still the south-south, southeastern part of Nigeria.
These are examples of how the political system protected and managed cultural expressions.
(05:34):
So it is through this political system that they use their regime, their jurisprudence,
their indigenous jurisprudence to make you not encroach, make you not infringe.
Because if you are not a member, for example, if you are not a member of the Eqwuk masquerade
(05:56):
society, you couldn't use their methods of creativity.
You couldn't use those creative methods.
You couldn't even wear their attire, their fashion.
So see, these are traditional indigenous to the global south, IE, peoples of, representing
(06:20):
Nigeria.
So if you take it now to the contemporary intellectual property that has been dominant
or that has been propagated in a dominant western fashion, you will see that there are
all similar traits.
There are all in terms of the definition, descriptions of what is legal or enforceable
(06:48):
in copyright or in terms of what is enforceable in patents.
You see that these peoples of the global south of Africa, of Nigeria, still have similar
characteristics, similar eligibility metrics of the present day intellectual property jurisprudence.
(07:14):
So why then can't we recognize the traditional cultural expressive metrics or traditional
cultural expressive designs of this indigenous art, of all these indigenous works?
(07:35):
So you see that now it is my position and it is of others that yes, we adopt a sugeranist,
meaning a specialized jurisprudence, or we have to recognize the fact that we have to
key in the existing traditional systems into the contemporary.
(07:58):
For instance, they recently agreed upon accession to the WIPO, traditional knowledge treaties
and genetic regimes of properties that recently occurred.
(08:21):
Although it took so long, but it's the right step that we are taking.
So why don't we extend it also quickly into this TCE, meaning the traditional cultural
expression.
So briefly, that is what I intended to do in these short minutes today to show that we
(08:44):
had a system, there exists a system, there still exists that system where the indigenous
people of the developing economies or the global south had, which is just similar to
what we have now.
So the nuances of contemporary legal construct like public domain, this thing has been in
(09:11):
public domain, therefore we can't protect it.
We have idea, expression, dichotomy, therefore copyright cannot enforce it.
Well we could sit down again and create our own African intellectual property jurisprudence.
That's what I keep saying.
So if there is a way that it can be done by turning a legal abstract and make it convince
(09:38):
able, why don't African scholars, African experts, IPS experts also develop their own jurisprudence
by making this construct, developing this construct.
So I think we should start thinking deeply.
I know there's been a lot of talk on this issue.
I'm just joining the voice.
I'm one of the voices out here now saying that, yeah, let us not tarry, let us not slow
(10:07):
it down now.
Let's continue making the case.
Let's be more of crusaders in this field.
So I will close by also referring because I think I'm talking too much about Nigeria.
Yes, I was born in Nigeria so I have a lot of knowledge about this and my research also
(10:31):
does a lot about Nigeria.
But you see also that in Kenya and not in Tanzania, we have the cases of the Masai people
whose fashion has been misappropriated for a long time.
So you ask yourself, what is that technique?
What mechanism has made the fashion, the fabric that the Masai people has or had been using
(10:59):
for a long time that made it so interesting that they return a lot of fashion people of
this fashion industrial spaces of Europe, of North America, of the Western Hemisphere,
or the Northern Hemisphere.
What kept that fabric to be that catchy to the eyes to even give the investors from this
(11:30):
big industrial basis to now see it enough to adapt it into their own fashion system
and make so much money out of it.
So there is that intellectual property, that intellectual property from the Masai people.
They got it from their forebears.
(11:51):
It's traditional.
It's indigenous.
It belongs to them.
It belongs to us.
So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.
I hope you will check out this platform, this podcast, African Intellectual Property
Students.
(12:12):
I am Sami I.
Reporting.
Thank you.
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