How an award show became the unlikely stage for an industry-wide reckoning.
At the 2026 AMVCAs, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the NCC’s Director-General, Asein, called for a united front against piracy. We know what you’re thinking. That’s not exactly the stereotype acceptance-speech for a night like that, but arguably the most important thing said on stage.
Piracy has always been the quiet tax Nigerian creators pay, but which nobody budgets particularly for. Lost sales, uncredited reuploads, royalties that evaporate before they’re collected. Having it named explicitly, by government and industry regulators in the same breath, signals something is shifting: piracy is finally being treated as an infrastructural problem, as opposed to the frustrating unsolvable problem that has masked it for years.
However, whether this translates into a proper enforcement move is something to anticipate and stay tuned for.
