By KABS KANU
The BBC is a model of accurate, objective and comprehensive news reporting in the world. Peopke all over the world have built a strong relationship of trust and confidence in the BBC because , even before CNN emerged, it was the most trusted media of international news .
The BBC is such a very important and trusted international media it debases the institution’s high standards to have a partisan, tribalistic , uncommitted , biased and selective correspondent like UMARU FOFANA , reporting from a significant country to Britain’s geopolitical pretensions like Sierra Leone.
Tax-paying BRITISH people need to know if the millions of dollars their country pours into Sierra Leone every year, including the payment of salaries by DFID, are being well utilized by the Sierra Leone Government through the unconditional provision of good governance, respect for the fundamental human and constitutional rights of the people and the rule of law and addressing the basic needs of the populace—-Conditionalities to which Western countries claim to tie aid.
When you have a BBC correspondent in Sierra Leone , who is protective of the fascist and despotic government in power and willfully refuses to report its bad governance, horrible human rights abuses, unlawful tinkering of the constitution and rampant corruption , you know BRITISH tax-payers are being short-changed.
When the now opposition APC was in power. Umaru Fofana reported on every political and economic mistake, misstep , governance problems , chaos or killing committed under the watch of the government. The BBC world audience was being fully informed about events in Sierra Leone . However, since the present SLPP Government came to power in 2018, Umaru Fofana changed completely., choosing not to send to the BBC any report on the government’s horrendous human rights abuses, unlawful acts,tribalism and unchecked corruption. Only positive news enhancing the image of the SLPP Government are now sent by Umaru Fofana to the BBC.
This is a shame and a disgrace not only to the BBC but Umaru Fofana himself, who is supposed to display professionalism and objectivity because he is representing an international media, not a private , political news organization.
Today, CONCERNED SIERRA LEONEANS stormed the BBC premises in London to stage a protest against Umaru Fofana’s selective, biased, unprofessional and SLPP-cuddling reports from Freetown. Many pro-SLPP supporters and Umaru’s cronies in the media Including the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists ( SLAJ) —- an organization Fofana once headed —-have taken to social media to defend him, but this desperate act is redolent of the shamelessly partisan and unprofessional character of the Sierra Leone media architecture today.
If these people are honest with themselves, can they compare the anemic, selective and pro-SLPP reporting to the exceptionally high standards of unbiased, objective and professional reporting of former BBC correspondents like Mark Doyle, Elizabeth Blunt and our own iconic Hilton Fyle ? Hilton Fyle was so professional he did not know party ,creed or tribe or government. He reported the news as it was, regardless of whose ox was gored.
UMARU FOFANA can edit private newspapers in Sierra Leone where he can editorialize the news as he wants but working for an international media like the BBC, is not his cup of tea. He is unfit because he is unprofessional and politically tainted and aligned.
