By Ngozi Onyeakusi—The 2022 conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) will hold in Lagos on Thursday, October 6 at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja.

The theme for the conference is “2023 Elections: Managing the Process for Credible Outcome” and it will feature prominent stakeholders in the polity, civil society organisations, security, judiciary and media, among others.

This year’s conference which will be holding barely five months to the 2023 general elections and one week into the official commencement of campaigns by political parties will provide a roadmap for political actors and the various publics on the need to play by the rules and conform to acceptable electoral behaviour, a statement by Mr. Olumide Iyanda, Secretary of the Conference Planning Committee said.

This year’s conference which will be heralded by a business luncheon with GOCOP Partners on Wednesday, October 5, at the same venue, is the 6th in the series.

Speakers at previous Conferences include Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto who delivered the 2019 lecture on “Economy, Security and National Development: The Way Forward”. In 2021, Mr. Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation keynoted the Conference in his capacity as Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19. He spoke on: “Post Covid-19 Pandemic: Recovery and Reconstruction in Nigeria.”

Quoting the Chairman of the Planning Committee, Mr. Ken Ugbechie, the statement said “the choice of this year’s theme was informed by contemporary political, economic, security and socio-cultural challenges facing Nigeria ahead of a very critical general election.”

The conference will bring together many policy and decision makers from the private and public sectors as well as scholars, non-governmental organizations and the media, the statement said.

According to the statement: “The Guild was established to ensure that online publishers uphold the tenets of journalism in doing their jobs and our membership is a constellation of Editors and senior journalists who, having distinguished themselves in their various stations, ventured into online publishing which is both the present and future of journalism globally.”

The statement said the Guild was mindful of the current state of the nation, especially in an election year, hence it chose to focus on the forthcoming elections.

“The conference is therefore a fitting platform for the distillation and sharing of ideas from a carefully chosen array of resource persons cutting across the entire socio-political ecosystem. GOCOP intends to use the opportunity of the conference to moderate the already tense political climate as well as to proffer solutions to current and anticipated challenges arising from the elections,” the statement said.