The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria has condemned the viral video of semi-nude women dancing seductively in a display truck around the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge in Lagos on Friday.
The footage, which has since gone viral on the social media, showed half-clad ladies dancing seductively with singer, Tekno, in a transparent display van in traffic around the bridge.
The footage, which was said to be a scene from Tekno’s unreleased video titled: ‘Agege’, in which he featured Zlatan Ibile, had the musician dancing with the semi-clad women and spraying them money and hitting them on the buttocks, an act which many Nigerians described as obscene.
Many commentators also called for the prosecution of all those involved.
However, Tekno, who debunked the claim that he was dancing with semi-clad ladies on his official Instagram account on Sunday, stated that the van was used to convey his crew to a location for a video shoot.
The Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency has since suspended the advertising firm, Pro-Vision Media Systems Limited, which was linked to the van used in conveying the semi-nude ladies though the firm claimed that it had sold the vehicle to a third party.
In a statement on Monday by the acting Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, APCON, Ijedi Iyoha, the council condemned the video and described it as disgusting.
The statement read in part, “APCON strongly condemns the advertisement, which is grossly indecent, disrespectful to Nigeria’s culture and prepared with little or no sense of social responsibility. It violates the common principle of decency promoted in the code of ethics of advertising practice and unnecessarily exploited and depicted unwholesome sexual behaviours.
“We have activated all necessary measures to ascertain the persons or advertising agency or agencies or organisations behind the act, and shall be working with other relevant government agencies and advertising stakeholders to ensure that the rule of law is applied and to further ensure that such and similar abhorrent forms of advertisements are avoided in the future.
“APCON is committed to ensuring that all advertisements in Nigeria or directed at the Nigerian market shall be legal, decent, honest, truthful, respectful and mindful of Nigeria’s culture, constitutional tenets and relevant lawful enactments as well as having a high sense of social responsibility.”
