Weeks ago, when BBC Africa News published the Ooni of Ife’s remarks about BBNaija, they used a picture of the Ooni before His Royal Majesty ascended the revered throne of his forefathers. This picture depicted the Ooni as an ordinary person. The BBC knowingly used this image to specifically undermine the Ooni’s person, his office, and remarks about the debauchery going on in the Big Brother house. I suspected their motive when I saw the story online. But I did not immediately react because I felt I might be overreacting or exaggerating.

They continued this misinformation with their headline on Akinwunmi Adesina’s reappointment, tagging him as flamboyant. This confirmed my fears about the unprofessionalism and racism being perpetuated by this outpost of the British Broadcasting Cooperation. My reasoning was that they can never do such to their Queen, the Queen of England, or any other European monarch for that matter the way they depicted the Ooni. Before they apologized for their error on Akinwunmi, I took time to scrutinize their past and present posts online. Please do the same. You will find a systematic but subtle agenda to influence current and burning issues in ways that are somewhat derogative to Nigeria and Nigerians. What finally made me to put pen to paper, is their recent hypothesis that probably, poverty is the reason for the low cases of COVID-19 infection in Africa.

I guess these derogative reporting have been carried out for decades in the BBC Hausa Service and other BBC services in Africa. The outcry about the Akinwunmi Adesina’s story came as a result of the personality involved and the fact that Nigerians were celebrating the triumph of one of their very best against the gang up of some of our African brothers and the United States. In the case of the Ooni’s article, many Nigerians who were enjoying the BBNaija show, even unthinkably reprimanded the Ooni and could not see the disrespectfulness of the BBC post and image. As welcoming as we might be as a nation, we must hold foreign media practitioners with the same standards we hold local operators. The Nigerian Union of Journalists and BON must play their ombudsman role. We cannot afford what happened in the last American election where Russia allegedly used the media to influence their Presidential election. Every media organization has an agenda, and many are not pro-masses. In Nigeria, we have come to know that Daily Trust cannot be trusted when reporting about leaders from northern Nigeria because they will be favorably biased to Islamic northern elites. The Nation newspaper cannot be taken seriously because they will report national issues or news concerning their owner Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a pro-APC narrative. Likewise, Channels TV cannot be expected to speak the truth about what is happening in Nigeria because their Chairman is a beneficiary of the spoils from APC.

The media is immensely powerful. Hausa speaking Nigerians who are illiterate are often at the mercy of the broadcast of BBC Hausa news. Hausa speaking Nigerians should scrutinize the content of their broadcast because foreign influences in elections and other happenings are not just a Russian affair. Colonial masters like France have a strong grip on Francophone Africa through the media and other platforms. At the wee hours before the 2015 Presidential election, the Obama administration sent their Secretary of State to northern governors and unashamedly showed their support for the then opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari. This helped in swinging the election pendulum Buhari’s way. We must be super careful about opening our airspace to foreign influences who have been found wanting in the past as we have experienced with the BBC, especially with their Pidgin English and other services active in Nigeria. The Buhari administration cannot be left to protect us in this regard because they are always apologetic when foreign powers who they can get indebting loans from are involved. We must also remain vigilant about local media houses that have sold out to the Buhari administration. Social media has somewhat democratized the media. We must use it to scrutinize and call out media organizations like the BBC who continue to undermine Nigerians and Nigeria.

Ata Ukuta, Editor  – www.towncryyers.com