UK agency penalises Oyakhilome’s channel N65.6m over Covid sermon

The Communications Office in the United Kingdom otherwise called Ofcom has sanctioned religious channel, Loveworld, which is owned by Nigerian Pastor, Chris Oyakhilome.

Ofcom disclosed this in a statement that the station was fined £125,000 (N65.6m) for breaking the broadcasting code of the nation by publicising false information on COVID-19.

The statement partly read, “Today we have fined Loveworld £125,000 for this breach of the broadcasting code. This was the second time in a year that the broadcaster breached our rules on accuracy in news and harm in its coverage of the coronavirus.”

On December 1 2020, Loveworld broadcast a 29-hour programme titled the Global Day of Prayer, during which assertions were made about the coronavirus.

As indicated by the agency, these assertions included the idea that the outburst was ‘planned’, that the ‘sinister’ vaccine can be utilised to embed ‘nanochips’ that can control and hurt citizens and the discredited hypothesis that the virus was in some way caused by 5G.

The station declared that it was disastrous that the station could keep on spreading such information in spite of past warnings.

The statement added, “Ofcom stresses that legitimate debate about the official response to the coronavirus pandemic is fundamental to holding public authorities to account during a global health crisis, particularly when public freedoms are curtailed and complex policy decisions are being taken.

“However, the inaccurate and potentially harmful claims made during this programme were unsupported by any factual evidence and went entirely without challenge. Ofcom was particularly concerned that this breach followed previous similar breaches in 2020 during the investigation of which, Loveworld Limited gave Ofcom a number of assurances as to how it would improve its compliance procedures.”

Oyakhilome, who is the founder and president of Christ Embassy church headquartered in Lagos, has in the last one year urged his members to disregard COVID-19 protocols.

He, as of late requested his members not to take Covid vaccines.