When journalists dance the corporate dance...???

I Hang My Case!!!

When journalists dance the corporate dance…???

With Theophilus Sahr Gbenda

(Journalist/Fixer/Campaigner)

Journalism, no doubt, is a noble and interesting profession practiced worldwide. Here in Sierra Leone, the nobility of the profession has come under the spotlight a couple of times.

Better still, the respectability of the profession has been dragged to the mud again and again, and with the advent of corporate entities in the country, the indications are clear that the worst is right on our doorsteps.

Sierra Leone, like most other countries around the world, has perpetually produced two sets of journalists. You either have the good one or the bad one. The good one would be the one who is prepared to sacrifice everything in defense of his/her profession and what he/she believes, while the bad one would be the one who can lie down for anything cheap without thinking that he/she has the reputation of a noble profession to protect.

With poverty smiling right in our faces, we have entered a stage wherein a successful journalist is determined by the number of assets he/she has, or how much he/she is able to make on a daily basis either through ‘coasting’ or some other unethical means.

Because the bad ones are always in the majority, it has come out clearly that corporate entities operating in the country enjoy the leverage of taking advantage of the situation.

In what I would refer to as the gradual taking over of the local media, Sierra Leone is currently witnessing a situation wherein advertisements from the corporate world are considered as gems. Some newspapers cannot even survive without such advertisements.

Take a look at most of the newspapers today, and you’ll see for yourself the outright take-over plan at play.

The consequences of this unfortunate trend abound, but suffice it to state that the divisive aspect of it is the most crucial.

It is no longer a secret that our resource-rich but shamefully poor and degrading country has attracted a wide range of unscrutinized so-called investors who are mostly active in the mining and extractive sector.

These multilateral companies always find pleasure in operating in resource cursed nations such as Sierra Leone, for the sole purpose of exploiting. Apart from the fact that such companies give premium to maximizing profit and limiting obligation, they are also known to be neck deep in sustaining the divide and rule tactic to get away with things.

This is exactly what Sierra Leone has experienced over the years, and by the look of things, the worst is in sight. What this means in essence is that hopes for the better are not only remote, but untenable.

The big game plan which many journalists are yet to see playing is the strategy employed by certain corporate entities to divide the media and the civil society body in the country.

Currently, the Association of Journalists on Mining and Extractives (AJME), which is on record as being one of the most outstanding media outfits in the country, is under undue attack from some unprogressive and self-seeking journalists and some so-called civil society activists operating under the aegis of the National Youth Coalition (NYC) and the little known about Youth Leadership Council Sierra Leone (YLCSL).

The crime AJME committed was to partner with Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) and the Campaign for Just Mining (CJM) to sound a wake-up call on the government to expedite the review of agreements or contracts signed with mining companies including Koidu Holdings Limited (KHL), London Mining Plc, African Minerals Limited (AML) and Sierra Rutile Company Limited.

It is worthy to note that the ongoing review of the said agreements and contracts was deemed necessary given that their terms are largely skewed against the interest of the country and its people.

AJME has never in its campaign for fair deals in the sector directed its fist at a particular mining company. If anything, no company has been spared, as evident in the number of investigative reports that have been put out over time in the public domain.

The fact that the criticisms against AJME are coming specifically from bedfellows of African Minerals Limited (AML) parading as journalists and youth activists, sends clear signals that the seeming divide and rule policy that is gradually degenerating in an all-out press war is apparently being machinated by AML.

It is for this reason that this piece will focus purely on putting some sense into the coconut of some shortsighted colleagues of ours in the media particularly, who without an iota of knowledge of what is obtaining in the mining and extractive sector, are allowing themselves to be used as paid-up agents.

Knowing its operations to be characterized by controversies, AML, headed by a controversial figure in the person of Frank Timis, a three times drug convict, has set the stage for the complete take-over of the local media.

Apart from filling the pages of most of our once content-based newspapers with strings of commercial advertisements, AML has also felt the need to establish its own pro-newspapers, with plans of setting up a radio station and television network in the shortest possible time.

Already, the company has covertly set up two newspapers. They are the ‘African Young Voices’ (AYV) headed by Theo Nicol, a senior colleague and the so-called ‘Ariogbo Newspaper’, headed by the inexperienced Abdul Fonti Kabia who I personally helped groom as editor. I often call him ‘Borbor Pain’ because of his steadfastness to duty and ability to work under tremendous pressure, while we were both at the Awareness Times.

Rather unfortunately, the Ariogbo newspaper of my former trainee has been on the forefront of launching personal attacks on AJME which I head as chairman, and even demonstrating readiness to go on a press war if AML continues to come under criticism.

Of course I will not reduce myself to the level of Abdul Fonti. I will only advice him to watch his steps because one reason why some of us have kept our cool till date is because of the long term friendship we’ve enjoyed as colleagues. We don’t want to see a situation wherein onetime friends and colleagues would suddenly go on the war path over a mining company that has not come to benefit the country and its people in the real sense of the word.

Let me, however, say to my boy, Abdul Fonti that the war he is trying to provoke will be too much for him and that any further trash from him will provoke nothing short of an all out press war and I dare state categorically here that AML will in this case be the direct object for attack, since it is its money at work.

While being gentle with Abdul Fonti who seems content with being sponsored by a corporate entity to launch undue attack on colleague journalists who have consciously refused to be pocketed as him and most others have, let me here state that the nation comes first and that any colleague who attempts to cast aspersions on our determination to expose the odds in our country’s mining and extractive sector which has been the subject of heartless exploitation for decades, will have doom spelled upon him/her.

In an article captioned ‘AJME, nar press war wuna want ba?’ published in the Ariogbo newspaper of Monday 12^th December 2011, an attempt was made not only to divert the public’s attention from the real issues, but also to discredit AJME.

The level of vagueness exhibited in the said article leaves one with the clear conclusion that it’s a hard job to do trying to paint white something that is black inside out.

In an attempt to paint AML white, Abdul Fonti or whoever was behind the quite misleading article that has since been dismissed as trash, raised the issues of employment and the bringing back of the train as reasons why AML should be adored and allowed to carry out its operations without any checks and balances.

The unknown author who is obviously afraid to associate his name with the said trash, also mentioned that everybody in the country including children coming up are aware of the fact that the coming of AML is a blessing in disguise to the nation and as a result nobody is grumbling over the operations of the company.  

This is hurting to say the least, because what the writer unknowingly tried to expose is his/her ignorance of the real situation on the ground. Go to Bumbuna Town and you’ll see people grumbling day in and day out and even referring to AML as a rogue company.

The only reliable water source that has served the needs of the people in Bumbuna since the 1970s has been polluted in the wake of the construction of the so-called 900 Man Camp by AML on the hill top of the township.

A couple of strike actions have been staged by affected persons within the AML operational area and wages of some categories of workers deemed to be incommensurate to the risks associated with their jobs. People have to bribe to secure jobs, according to some reports.

Most disturbing is the issue regarding the bringing back of the train. The major question is, for whom? Is it serving the needs of the people or the company? Is the re-introduction of the train out of love for our country or to fast track the pillaging of our mineral wealth? 

You can dance the corporate dance, but make sure you don’t touch non-dancers. Lonta!

I hang my case!!!