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.
Source: PUNCH
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