Becoming GOCOP: The story, by Ken Ugbechie

The Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP), the holy grail of online publishing in Nigeria, has told its own story. A privilege. Not many associations live to etch their story on the boulders of history. GOCOP is the foremost body of online publishers in Nigeria. And it has just told its story. A story that drips with courage, will, vision and tenacity.

The story of GOCOP has been captured in a book aptly titled, NIGERIA MEDIA RENAISSANCE: GOCOP Perspectives on Online Publishing. The book is a zesty, front-row compendium of the metamorphosis of online publishing in Nigeria rendered in racy prose by media gladiators who are all members of GOCOP. It was unveiled on June 17, in Abuja, at a gathering of eagles and stars in the Nigerian journalism firmament. The event was more than a book launch. It was also a fundraiser for N2.3 billion GOCOP MEDIA CENTRE; a one-stop media resort encompassing offices, halls, library, others.

The Presidency, captains of industry, the academia, politicians, the diplomatic community and everybody that is somebody was present. A testament to the seriousness of GOCOP and an authentication of the acceptability of GOCOP as the only genuine constellation of professional journalists operating in the online space. The roll call is a rich cast comprising the incumbent Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris and his predecessor Alhaji Lai Mohammed, both media gurus but of varying modus vivendi and temperament. Idris who chaired the occasion showered encomium on GOCOP for chronicling the birthing and trajectory of GOCOP. He is a huge fan of GOCOP, and members love him for his calm, non-combative disposition.

The book is a first-hand account of the history of a group essentially formed to breath life into the online journalism ecosystem which at that time was the playground of quacks, media hounds and professional misfits who took advantage of a vacuum created by the absence of ethically-driven professional journalists in the online community.

GOCOP was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission in 2013 as Nigerian Online Publishers Association (NOPA). Its emergence soon got a few media miscreants and impostors roiled and enraged. These were the purveyors of fake news and mercantilists who report news for money, and not as a public service rendered professionally. They were not guided by the demand of both duty and the call of journalism. Their motivation was lucre. Their tool was blackmail. They deployed this to do damage to the journalism profession. And hell, they did so much damage, disseminating bare-faced falsehood cloned in their devious and grossly infantile mind. These media shams, therefore, saw the emergence of GOCOP, a group of professional journalists with undeniable pedigree, as an existential threat; a formidable group capable of eclipsing them from the online journalism agora. So, they fought back, futilely so, except, they succeeded in causing a rebranding of NOPA to GOCOP in 2014.

Ever since, GOCOP had grown from an informal chat between two journalists to a 120-strong membership of seasoned journalists flaunting over 2,000 years cumulative experience in print and broadcast journalism. GOCOP has transformed into a formidable armada of grounded and richly up-skilled journalists spread across the world. They are the first to break the news. They are not fazed by the competition. They report facts, and explore the often treacherous labyrinth of investigative journalism. Some GOCOP members are multiple-award winners. It is a mix of scholarly journalists, lawyers still immersed in journalism. And their knowledge bandwidth knows no limit. They report and analyse the economy, politics, sports, agriculture, environment, oil and gas, real estate, insurance, banking, society, and every sphere of human endeavour, making it the preferred platform for advertisers.

The GOCOP fraternity is beyond reporting. Members are mediapreneurs captured within the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sub-sector. They are employers of labour and tax-payers, contributing to the GDP of the nation. Birthed as a counterpoise to the mushrooming of fake news purveyors, GOCOP, it must be emphasised, has crested the curve of responsible journalism and has succeeded, reasonably so, in pushing the ethically-deficient and mostly intellectually stunted impostors out of the online journalism space, limiting them to occasional pop-ups on social media.

The book was reviewed by a consummate public relations czar and scholar, Dr. Ike Neliaku, who is currently the President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR). Neliaku who himself is a treasure trove of knowledge described the book “as a classic documentation of factual trajectory of a great destiny, whose time has come. With a powerful storytelling technique, ‘photo speak’, use of poetic devices as well as in-depth interview, readers will not want to put it down until they read the whole chapters and epilogue on behind-the-scene intrigues that played during GOCOP registration process with the CAC. The secret behind this irresistibility is the journalistic narration of events and contributions that are captivating about GOCOP transformation and its strategic influence on online journalism and digital economy.”

While recommending the book for all, Neliaku reminds GOCOP members, and indeed all journalists, that strive for excellence and ethical standard of the words of caution of Dapo Olorunyomi, the inimitable publisher of Premium Times, an audacious online journalism platform in Nigeria with a bent for investigative journalism, whom in his foreword to the book wrote: “The lessons from history are clear: Freedom must never be taken for granted. To safeguard this freedom, the online journalism community must collaborate to strengthen ethical, fact-based journalism and resist the forces that seek to undermine it.”

This is the path GOCOP members have chosen: To uphold press freedom and defend civil liberties by practicing fact-based reportage guided by the creeds of ethics, fairness and justice. GOCOP is no longer an idea. It is a phenomenon, a media movement steeped in advocacy, information dissemination, data journalism, edutainment, development and agenda-setting. This book should be a companion of students of media studies, journalists, PR and Advertising practitioners, lawyers especially those with interest in media law, teachers and anybody interested in seeking knowledge in this furiously competitive digital age. It deserves a place in the libraries of all higher institutions in Nigeria.