For allegedly failing to pay necessary advertising fees, the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has sealed off several campaign billboards of aspirants in the September 22 Governorship election in Osun state.
APCON, a federal government agency coordinating the control and regulation of the practice of advertising in Nigeria was said to have visited Osun to enforce compliance to advertising ethics and remittances of fees.
A top official of the agency told our correspondent that it visited Osun as part of its statutory and obligatory responsibilities to promote ethical advertisement with a pathway to convert commercial communications into an income generating outfit for the country.
The agency accused the aspirants, which cuts across all major political parties in the state of defaulting in payment of their campaign adverts placed on some billboards across the state.
Most of the billboards and signpost sighted by our correspondent were defaced with the customized stickers of APCON.
Most of the sealled campaign billboards were mounted in Osogbo.
Meanwhile, some of the aspirants had denied owing APCON.
When contacted, some of affected governorship aspirants, who appear financially buoyant, claimed they paid to the advertising agency that contacted the placements of the campaign posters on the boards.
They wondered why the agency did not remit their payments to APCON insisting that the governorship race is serious to them and they could not afford to jeopardize it by refusing to pay advert fee.
Further investigation through the APCON zonal office in Ilorin revealed that only four out of the popular contenders were able to remit their fee for their billboards and so escaped seal off.
The billboards of an aspirant of the All Progressive Congress and incumbent Chief of Staff to Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola and the GMD of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Mr Akin Ogunbiyi were not defaced.
Others whose billboards were not sealed are Mr Gafar Akintayo Amere, Benedict Olugboyega Alabi, both of the APC
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