Renowned gospel act and Glo Ambassador, Sammie
Okposo has renounced his membership of Copyright
Society of Nigeria (COSON), due to what he says is the
lack of transparency and accountability on the part of
the CMO. This is coming barely two weeks after he
carpeted NBC for its failure to reach an agreement with
COSON while also calling for transparency at the CMO.

In the statement made available to the media, the
multiple award winning artiste who has been an avid
member of the CMO since inception declared that
COSON should desist from 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.”
Reiterating his earlier statements, Okposo insisted that
for COSON to be taken seriously, the need for
transparency and accountability could not be
overemphasized. “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”.

Advancing reason why he chose to part ways with the
CMO, the singer said “The leadership of COSON must
also desist from pursuing selfish interests of some of its
members and 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”.
Okposo finally called on government to beam its
search lights on the activities of peculiar organizations
like COSON through the enactment and
implementation of laws and oversight function. He also
called for the registration of another CMO with a view to
breaking the monopoly currently being enjoyed by
COSON.