The BBC has not been weaned of controversy and libelous publications over the decades it has been in operation, and is still marred in dubious reports. Their Panorama program in particular has come under serious grill over the years, and even lost legal battles that have incurred huge legal costs on the BBC. There is the case of Maggie’s militant tendency in 1984 in which two Labour MPs dragged the BBC to court. After three days of hearing the BBC’s Assistant Director General then Alan Protheroe asked that the matter be settled privately. The two MPs who sued the BBC Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth were paid compensation and damages to the tune of £240,000. The BBC filmed Gerard Howarth wearing a train driver’s uniform at a train station, and claimed he had attended a fascist meeting in Italy.
That’s how low they can go at times. Examples abound of their recklessness over the decade including the falsified coverage of miners’ strike, Libyan raid controversy, secret society controversy and the famous Sinn Fein broadcast ban. So, for those who think the BBC is infallible, you better have a rethink.
The latest prejudiced show by the BBC involving the Mayor of the Freetown City Council Yvonne Aki Sawyer has raised eyebrows about the objectivity of the BBC and got tongues wagging about its credibility.
The much-vaunted film MAYOR ON THE FRONTLINE: Democracy in Crisis, turned out to be anticlimactic and exposure of the film makers and their futile attempt to smear a government that has deepened the democratic credentials of the country and rebranded the country’s image.
The BBC was so unfair with their global audience that they even failed to scratch beyond the Mayor’s puerile allegations of the central government not working with her for about three of her five-year tenure in office. They failed to or deliberately refused to show how the government of President Julius Maada Bio has been constant in fulfilling its financial obligations to the Freetown City Council during Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyer’s tenure.
In 2018, government pumped Nle 9,605,567 (old leones Le9,609,567,000) into Freetown City Council; same government in 2019 poured Nle 13,752,757 (old leones Le 13,752,757,000); in 2020 (Covid-19 period) government ploughed Nle 8,716,365 (old leones Le 8,716,365,000) into same FCC; in 2021 government transferred into FCC account Nle 8,344,821 (old leones Le 8,344,821,000); in 2022 central government remitted Nle 5,979,349 (old leones Le 5,979,349,000).
Even in the current stormy year where the Mayor’s party opted not to work with government over bogus elections malfeasance claims, the government of President Julius Maada Bio has poured Nle 10,841,683 (old Le 10,841,683,000) into Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyer’s council. Is that how a government she claimed in the BBC documentary that does not want to work with her, behaves? The BBC did not cover all the financial inflows from central government to Mayor Aki Sawyer’s FCC and how she has nothing to show for all of the huge support she is getting from government. All they focused on was following her foot steps to rehearse a drama that is clearly intended to tilt the country’s optics and paint it black, under a government that has received so much international accolades for the transformations taking place in the country and the rebranding it has created.
The BBC’s image as a reliable news outlet has once again come under the spotlight. Will they eat humble pie and apologize?
