By Umaru Fofana
This week something that could and should have passed off uneventfully led to an unnecessary flurry of furore that became, probably, the biggest threat to press freedom since President Julius Maada Bio came to power in April 2018.
A local journalist, Sallieu Tejan-Jalloh of the Times newspaper did what any journalist worth their salt would and should have done. He attempted to crosscheck a story he was doing with the main subject. Despite that, or rather because of it, he ended up passing a night in a smelly police lockup at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department in Freetown.
The timing could not have been more inappropriate, coming as it does just when the government has done all it can, creditably, to repeal the obnoxious criminal and seditious libel law for which I will forever be grateful to them. Cabinet has approved the repeal and has instructed the Law Officers’ Department to draft the bill which has been done. We now await promulgation by parliament. When eventually passed, it will be the biggest single move to unshackle the press in Sierra Leone since the anti-free speech law itself was passed in 1965.
Tejan-Jalloh sent a text message to Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Prof David Francis – the third highest-ranking in cabinet after the President and the Vice President. The SMS sought to inquire about what the journalist claimed was a bribe paid into the ECOBANK account of the minister by the iron ore miner, SL Mining.
SL Mining has refuted the allegations. And I believe them. I clearly cannot see how a company which recently refused to pay $ 1 million to the state that led to its export suspension and the eventual cancellation of its licence, would pay $ 1.5 million as bribe to an individual or even a group of people to have that cancellation reversed or for whatever reason.
ECOBANK has also denied the claim insisting that the minister does not even operate an account with them. That is something almost impossible to cover up not least within so short a time from the allegations. All he has that comes anywhere close to the bank is a prepaid Xpress Card which anyone with a valid identity card can walk into the bank and have. This is like a smart card or a sim card, except that the owner tops it up with money to use to buy anything that operates an ATM card system. That card has never been used by the minister and the bank says it has a zero balance.
Now, having received that text message, all the Chief Minister should have done, methinks, was to reply to the journalist stating his position on the matter and not to involve the police. Here is what I would have written – the truth of course: “This is to acknowledge your text message. I wish to tell you categorically that the allegations are totally false. No such payment has been made to me by anyone for any reason whatsoever. I also do not have any account with ECOBANK. I am at present in Paris on official assignment and will be back… I am happy to discuss this with you on my return if you so desire. Thank you.”
Alternatively, having denied the allegations put to him by the journalist, he should have directed him to his media team back home. Instead, the Chief Minister chose to forward the text message to the police and to the Anti Corruption Commission as both institutions have publicly admitted. That was escalating an issue, which badly handled it. Why get the police involved if not to arrest the journalist? Why ignore the journalist’s query? Why arrest the journalist when he had done nothing wrong at that stage? What is the offence? If not for the overzealousness of the police, the best – perhaps worst – they would have done, despite the wrong move by the minister, was to have invited the journalist to their office. That is, after a formal complaint would have been made to the police by the Chief Minister or someone else acting in his stead. I bet my life that was never done. And if not for the minister’s status the police would not have been so knee jerk and overzealous.
However much you stretch libel, even under our obnoxious provisions and abuse, it has to have reached three people. A text message to only one person, even if insulting, does not constitute a publication. When for example the then transport minister, Balogun Koroma more or less ordered the arrest of journalist David Tam-Baryoh for a text message he had sent him – however foolish that also was – the argument was that the same text had been sent by the same journalist to at least two other people. In this case there is still no evidence that the journalist sent it to anyone else. Rather we have evidence that the Chief Minister did to the police and to the ACC as they have said. So what do you charge Tejan-Jalloh with? Nothing as far as I know!
Some others have cited the signposting and publication of something along the line of “Chief Minister and ECOBANK under the spotlight”. There could be everything wrong with that but it is certainly nothing libellous. To be said to be under the spotlight does not carry any libellous content or even context, except skewed in a self-serving manner.
Here is what I think is the issue here. Prof David Francis is a well-intentioned person. Some say he is brash and arrogant but I say he is well learned and forthright. Not hypocritical. And hugely professorial. Having taught in a prestigious British university like Bradford and to have become a professor at a relatively young age, one of very few people to hold a PhD degree without first having a Master’s degree would bring about many things. One of them is that he spent most of his post-university life in the classroom as an academic. He is undoubtedly a highly intelligent man. Probably because of that, he sees everyone else as either his (Pro-)Chancellor (boss) or his student (subordinate). So much so that he has the proclivity to talk down or even look down on people – especially those who are not professors or do not hold a PhD degree. His attitude sometimes reminds me of another Sierra Leonean professor (I won’t name him) who, when asked by some foreign visitors about one of the most brilliant lecturers at FBC in my days, responded thus: “Is he a professor?” The visitors said, “No Sir”. “Is he a Doctor?” he asked them again. “No, but we hear he a brilliant lecturer at the university where you also lecture”, they answered again. “Then how can I know him!?” the professor bellowed, adding: “How can I know him when he is neither a professor nor a doctor?”
Anyway…Clearly the professor knew the colleague he was being asked about. He just wanted to demean him. The difference between the two professors is that the one never got involved in politics, at least not deeply. But our Chief Minister Professor is a politician even if he sometimes says he is not one. Even if he is not a politician he is a public official and is answerable to the public, including through the media.
I offer this piece of advice to all public officials – and do not wish to be paid for it: The reason a witness refers to a lawyer as “My Lord” when answering to questions in court is because they are addressing the Judge through the lawyer. All the respect that is being accorded the lawyer is for the sake of the judge. Invariably, when a public official talks to a journalist, if they sound condescending, they are being condescending to the public who they are addressing through the journalist. So be polite to the journalist even when or if they try to be annoying.
Journalists by nature are annoying creatures. We have to so be in the interest of the public. But we must NEVER be rude, as was the case when a journalist sent a very condescending letter to Parliament a few years ago for which he later apologised. And we must never do the bidding for any politician.
Rightly or wrongly Prof Francis is not liked by many. His leadership of the Government Transition Team Report which led to the setting up of the three Commissions of Inquiry was a show of sheer brilliance. For that he is not liked by those in power at the time. I would say for all the wrong reasons as far as the interest of Sierra Leone is concerned. Unless someone is an obscurantist they should like him for that.
He is also not liked by a good number of people within his own SLPP party who, rightly or wrongly, accuse him of serving as a stumbling block to accessing the President. That is his job, to tidy up things for the president. I have been president a few times – however small time – so I know a bit about the pressure that presidents are under. Such a person is needed however undesired by some.
But in all this, Prof Francis should know that journalists, like all other professionals, don’t like being ignored let alone scorned, in the discharge of their duties, whether they are professors or PhD holders not. I hope he finds time to organise a cocktail with the media when he returns. A good man has done wrong. He has to be called out for it.
Copyright © 2019 Politico Online
