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

I Hang My Case!!!

When journalists dance the corporate dance…???

(Part Two)

With Theophilus Sahr Gbenda

(Journalist/Fixer/Campaigner)

In part one of this series, I came down hard on certain misguided colleagues who have taken it upon themselves to blindly defend corporate entities operating in the country and in the process undermining the reputation of the media profession and at the same time misinforming members of the public.

Those who the cap fit wasted no time in taking up a fight in outright defence of their allegiance to one of the corporate entities that has come out clearly as being the main manipulator of the local media. African Minerals Limited (AML) is the company on the spotlight in this regard.

Two newspapers widely believed to be covertly established by African Minerals Limited and staffed by colleagues whose specified duty is to protect the company against bad press or criticism and to perpetuate lies about the effects of its operations on the country and its people.

The two papers in question are the African Young Voices (AYV) with Theo Nicol as Editor-In-Chief and the so-called Ariogbo with Abdul Karim Fonti Kabia as Executive Editor. Big titles indeed! But how deserving are they is another question altogether.

The point I am trying to drive home is that AYV and Ariogbo are now official mouthpieces of AML and therefore an attack on the latter is a direct attack on them. Whether they have a point to defend or not is often not the matter, what matters to them is to ensure that their financiers see them at work.

Unlike AYV which tried to respond to my article in a very mature way, Ariogbo took it a little bit personal by hauling insults and demonstrating total ungratefulness to me who has always looked up to him as an upcoming media personality and who of course played a critical part in his grooming. Rather indigenously, Abdul Karim Kabia who dropped his family name and started calling himself Abdul Fonti after days of hiding like a crab in a small corner for fear of being arrested over an alleged libelous article against President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, wants the public to believe that I Theophilus Gbenda of all journalists in the country, worked under him while he was Acting Editor of the Awareness Times.

This is total foolishness because for all I know, I was the first ever Deputy Editor of Awareness Times and I had cause to leave to take up another job. After a while, and by which time his (Abdul Fonti’s) name was undeservingly appearing on the imprint as Acting Editor, I went back to the Awareness Times not as a mainstream employee, but as a contractor responsible directly to the proprietress, General Sylvia Olayinka Blyden.

My specific duty then was to edit all the stories that go through Abdul Fonti as acting editor, for the purpose of professionalization. Each time I went editing his stuffs, I’ll call him to sit by my side and see how good editing is done. Today, he has the audacity to insinuate that he was in fact my boss. I don’t blame him. I blame the Independent Media Commission (IMC) for allowing him to use the title of Executive Editor when he has never ever been a full time editor of any newspaper establishment.    

While I bear no malice for him, it is worthy to note that both AYV and Ariogbo are now distancing themselves from the fact that AML had a hand in their establishment. The million dollar question is, how comes they are both operating from the same address at 49 Siaka Stevens Street. Or is it a mere coincidence?

Where sincerity counts, Theo Nicol will for instance not come back to the public and argue that AYV is not an official appendage of AML. It was this same Theo Nicol who during the registration phase of the AYV and while he was trying to put a team together, invited me to his office to try to convince me to be one of the editors of the said newspaper. When I posed the question to him as to who was behind the paper in terms of sponsorship, he stated categorically that AML and African Petroleum are the ones putting their monies into the business, and that plans are underway to establish a radio station and a television network soon.

While making the point clear that both AML and African Petroleum are owned by the controversial Romanian born Frank Timis, let me also make it clear that Theo Nicol even went further to tell me that “I am looking for the best journalists money can buy”. My response to his unsolicited offer was that, ‘You are talking to the wrong person’.

As for Ariogbo, it is no secret that Anthony Navo Jr. is playing the role of a front man for African Minerals Limited. When I used the word covert, I simply mean that African Minerals is hiding behind its very shadow to establish its own %100 pro-newspapers.  

One fact that cannot be denied is that both papers are established on purpose, and that purpose as mentioned earlier, is to serve the best interest of AML.

The two papers have always banked on fooling the gullible public into believing that AML is God-sent.  That the company has thus far provided more than nine thousand jobs for Sierra Leoneans and has brought back the train.

Theo Nicol ought to know better when it comes to train service. In one of his recent articles, Theo heaped unsubstantiated praises on AML for bringing back the train after a period exceeding 30 years and said rather carelessly that Sierra Leone is in for rapid development as a result.

Theo made it abundantly clear in the said misleading article that while he was a small boy leaving with his parents around Hastings, his father use to take home fresh fruits and other items brought all the way from Portoru by train and that people were leaving places like Kenema and Bo to come down to work in Freetown and return back after work.

Is Theo, my name sake, unaware of the fact that the trains brought in by AML are not going to operate like the ones he made reference to in his article? In fact the whole train thing is nothing to make noise about because they are here not to render the regular train service as in the 1970s, but rather to serve as carriages of precious minerals.

In a bid to enhance acceptability of the reintroduction of the train, it was originally declared by the AML management that the trains will serve both the needs of the locals and the company. They even lied that the trains will be useful in transporting goods and producers from one point to another in a bid to ease the transportation problem encountered mostly by local farmers. This was the strategy used in getting the people to give up their lands for the train line to pass.

The trains have started operating now, and the language has changed completely. It is now official that the trains are for the exclusive use of the company and that anyone who dares pass before a train while in motion will have him or herself to blame. Meaning if you have an encounter with the train and get killed or injured, you’ll have yourself to blame.

Of course AML has provided substantial employment facilities, but the fact remains that they are not doing those employed any favour. You have to work hard and satisfactorily or get sacked without any warning. So what’s the fuss about? For Theo and Abdul Fonti to however suggest that the company has granted over nine thousand jobs is a blatant exaggeration and a sheer misinformation. Besides, the jobs granted to the bulk of Sierra Leoneans are menial in nature. The heavily paid jobs are given to foreigners who they refer to as expatriates. They even have truck drivers, carpenters and masoners that are paid as expatriates because they are coming from abroad. Don’t we have professional truck drivers, carpenters and masoners here? The local workers have no union to speak on their behalf, and have managed to stage a number of protest actions over poor working conditions and delayed payment of salaries. So what’s the empty noise about?

What my colleagues in question are displaying is the fact that their eyes are blind to the bigger picture. All they seem to care about is what goes into their pockets and they care less about the adverse effects of the operations of the company on the persons who are feeling the brunt directly.

Go to the Bumbuna general area and conduct a perception survey on what the indigenes think about the presence of AML in their locality. No doubt, those who will speak against will double, if not triple those who will speak in favour of the company. Does that ring a bell?

What those of us who have outrightly refused to be pocketed by AML are doing is to simply avoid a situation wherein all of us would be seen dancing the corporate dance as if celebrating the open stealing of our mineral wealth. We are looking at the bigger picture. Not that we hate AML. We are simply concerned about the fact that there is yet no significant benefit in sight for the nation, as compared to what the company and its shareholders will be taking away. The AML contract is a complete rip-off to say the least, which is why we’ve been calling for its review. Is that a crime?

When I talk about the take over plan being orchestrated by AML, people think am not being fair to the company. But imagine a 99 years infrastructural lease agreement granted to the company by the Government of Sierra Leone and also take into consideration that AML is now bent on disintegrating the local media and civil society body. AML is well advanced in its plan to establish its own mouthpieces, create its own parallel civil society outfits like the so-called Youth Leadership Council Sierra Leone (YLCSL). Of course the National Youth Coalition (NYC) headed by Al-Sankoh Conteh has sold out rather cheaply to AML.

Let me hang my case by stating that what we are doing is for the benefit of the entire citizenry of the state including the very ones who think we should give the company a break.