SLBC a Sham Public Broadcaster

Shambolic SLBC seeks to discredit NGC National Delegates Conference by Collaborating With the Defeated Joseph Maada Kpulun

The Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) is the country’s public service broadcaster, and it is obliged to give voice to each and every Sierra Leonean, to political parties, and interest group. As a sign of the SLBC's deplorable editorial standards and poor management, the SLBC today invited the disgruntled and defeated candidate for the position of National Chairman and Leader of the NGC, Mr Joseph Maada Kpulun, to use the Morning Coffee programme to air his grievances and to make unfounded allegations about the conduct of the party's National Delegates Conference. This is yet another indicator of how badly public institutions in our country which exists to foster a healthy democracy, consistently fail to put Sa Lone Fos. 

The Public should be made aware that the SLBC did not offer the NGC National Leadership an opportunity to challenge Mr Kpulun’s assertions. The broadcaster made no attempt to reach out to the party prior to and after the interview. It is unfortunate that, the SLBC has acquired the habit of giving voice to aggrieved persons who are determined to orchestrate division within their own parties, as we head towards the 2023 General Elections. The public should scrutinise this motive of a state broadcaster, who appears to be beholden to the whim of government's which are in office. 

Early this year, the SLBC similarly invited an ordinary member of the NGC party, Mr Tcho Gbabior who was masquerading as an official spokesperson of the NGC. On that occasion, the SLBC made direct contact with the individual and failed to contact the National Secretariat and Leadership, in a blatant attempt to misrepresent the NGC's efforts. Mr Gbabior used the SLBC platform, to ridicule the party's efforts. The SLBC achieved the objectives that the government to which it is beholden to, wanted to be achieve. Mr Gbabior, an associate of Mr Kpulun was also resoundingly defeated in the contest for National PRO. 

The NGC Party successfully concluded its Lower-Level Elections and National Delegates Conference, despite several challenges which it encountered, including the deployment of the Sierra Leone Police during elections in Kenema, at the behest of Mr Kpulun, the theft of official NGC receipt books by an associate of Mr Kpulun to confer membership of non-NGC supporters, in order to generate parallel list of delegates and several petitions to PPRC, including an eleventh hour petition, which inevitably delayed the National Delegates Conference by two days. 

NGC is the only opposition party which has successfully concluded this process, and at the present time, is the only political party that will be able to contest the elections in 2023 against the ruling SLPP, if other political parties do not conclude their own Lower-Level Elections and National Delegates Conference. Therefore, it is unsurprising why a broadcaster which is beholden to government, would seek to undermine the credibility of the party’s successful conference. 

The fact that the SLBC has failed to extend an invitation to the elected National Chairman and Leader, Dr Dennis Bright, since he was elected on 13th December 2022, and chose instead to provide a platform for Mr Kpulun, undermines the editorial integrity of the broadcaster and calls into question the competence of the journalists it employs. Brown envelope journalism is a significant contributor to our country's inability to advance, to achieve good governance and accountability, and it is the Sierra Leonean people who are being let down by the SLBC.