You will be disgraced out of office - Audu Maikori tells Tony Okoroji

A director on the board of the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Audu Maikori, has in a statement urged deposed chairman of yhe organisation, Chief Tony Okoroji to withdraw from the tussle and take on a fatherly role in COSON rather than fighting Efe Omoregbe, who was recently arrested by the police on allegations of forgery.

The past few months has seen factions embroiled in a power tussle at COSON, with Okoroji and Efe Omorogbe laying claim to the leadership of the body.

Confusion started following an impromptu meeting of COSON on December 7, 2017, where Omoregbe was declared as Okoroji’s successor with the former chairman being replaced over impropriety allegations.

Maikori in a statement urged Okoroji to relinquish power to the rightful leader or risk facing the same fate as disgraced President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who was forcibly removed from office.

“Okoroji had previously won the respect of many people in the music industry over the years- sadly it may seem that the adulation he once enjoyed has gotten into his head such that he now believes he is above the law and that the laws don’t apply to him anymore,” Maikori said.

“If I were Tony Okoroji, I would simply have resigned in the face of these grave allegations for the sake of COSON. Instead, Tony has utilized COSON funds to wage a media war against Efe Omoregbe and the board members that voted him out of office. The funny thing about his misdirected campaign is that Efe Omoregbe was unwilling to take the position of Chairman of COSON- it was the repeated pressure from many songwriters, artists, and labels that led to him reluctantly accepting to chair COSON. The fight over the leadership of COSON is to ensure we can build a world-class Collection society that matches up with the potentials of such an important copyrights market like Nigeria.

“If Chief Okoroji believes that he is the only man in Nigeria that can successfully chair COSON, then he should simply comply with the NCC directive and wait for the next AGM and recontest.

“We saw what happened to Robert Mugabe, who clung unto power desperately until he was disgraced out of office. This is the plight of Chief Tony Okoroji who one expects should be playing a fatherly and advisory role in the music industry, instead, he is busy fighting with Efe Omoregbe a man he is old enough to father, all in a bid to hold on to something that he erroneously believes is his birthright.”

The Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC), the organisation that regulates the affairs of COSON, had asked the body to revert to status quo in a memo signed by the Director-General of NCC, Afam Ezekude, and dated February 9.

The NCC demanded a probe of the events at the December 19, 2017 meeting and “declared the purported actions as illegal, null and void”, directing the board to return to the status quo as at December 7.