Renowned gospel singer and Glo Ambassador, Sammie Okposo,
may have renounced his membership of the Copyright Society of Nigeria, barely
two weeks after he criticized the National Broadcasting Commission for its
failure to reach an agreement with the collecting society.
A public statement made available to the media on
Thursday indicates that the award winning artiste requested COSON to stop
collecting royalties and acting on his behalf with immediate effect.
“I, Sammie Okposo, a proud Nigerian artiste wishes
to notify the general public and all stakeholders alike that I have stopped
being a member of COSON,” the statement quoted the singer as saying.
The statement reads, “The registration of COSON is
commendable and may have set the Industry on the path to growth and
consolidation but accountability and transparency is very important. My facts
reveal that there is nothing in COSON’s constitution that limits the number of
terms the Chairman of the Board could serve and this is extremely dangerous. I
read Onyeka Onwenu’s interview and she cited it as one of the reasons she left
the board of COSON. All effort must be made to ensure COSON does not end up the
property of one man. COSON is now delving into awards and competitive
activities that are not related to its core responsibilities and this is a distraction”.
According to the statement, Okposo chose to part ways
with the organization because of what he described as the “selfish interests”
of some of its members.
“Our artistes must get their due respect and
recognition. The organization needs to imbibe the art of transparency in the
disbursement of funds. How do you disburse royalty payments without showing the
artistes the logs? It’s unacceptable. This issue must also be looked into with
a view to ensuring that monies collected actually go to deserving artistes,” he
was quoted as saying.
Okposo finally called on the Federal Government to beam
its search lights on the activities of such organisations through the enactment
and implementation of laws and oversight function.
Culled from Punch
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