Chris Oyakhilome, Christ Embassy Founder, In Trouble

<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Chris Oyakhilome may have run into trouble<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that Chris Oyakhilome&comma; the founder of Believers Love World&comma; aka&comma; Christ Embassy may have gone against electronic media regulation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Information obtained by OpenLife Nigeria indicated that the smooth speaking pastor media company has been fined N65m over COVID-19 sermon by Ofcom&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ofcom&comma;  Office of Communications&comma; is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting&comma; telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom&period; It has  has wide-ranging powers across the television&comma; radio&comma; telecoms and postal sectors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to the story&comma; Loveworld&comma; a television channel belonging to popular Nigerian pastor&comma; <strong>Chris<&sol;strong> Oyakhilome has been fined N65 million for a sermon that breached broadcasting code on COVID-19&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Loveworld was slammed with the N65 million fine for breaching the country’s broadcasting code by disseminating misinformation on COVID-19&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ofcom in a statement on Wednesday stated that it was the second time that the TV channel would breach its rules on accuracy in news&comma; and harm in its coverage of the COVID-19&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ofcom noted that the inaccurate and potentially harmful claims made during the programme were unsupported by any factual evidence and went entirely without challenge&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The statement reads&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £125&comma;000 on Loveworld Limited after a programme broadcast on its religious service <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;thisdaylive&period;com&sol;">Loveworld Television Network<&sol;a> featured inaccurate and potentially harmful claims about the Coronavirus without providing adequate protection for viewers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This was the second time in a year that the broadcaster breached our rules on accuracy in news&comma; and harm in its coverage of the Coronavirus&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ofcom considered these breaches to be serious&comma; repeated and reckless&comma; warranting the imposition of a statutory sanction beyond the direction to broadcast a statement of our findings that Ofcom issued in its Decision published 15 January 2021&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ofcom’s investigation found that the 29-hour programme&comma; Global Day of Prayer&comma; included statements claiming that the pandemic is a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;planned” event created by the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;deep state” for nefarious purposes&comma; and that the vaccine is a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;sinister” means of administering &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;nanochips” to control and harm people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Some statements claimed that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;fraudulent” testing had been carried out to deceive the public about the existence of the virus and the scale of the pandemic&period; Others linked the cause of Covid-19 to the roll out of 5G technology&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;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 &&num;8211&semi; particularly when public freedoms are curtailed and complex policy decisions are being taken&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;However&comma; the inaccurate and potentially harmful claims made during this programme were unsupported by any factual evidence and went entirely without challenge&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ofcom was particularly concerned that this breach followed previous&comma; similar breaches in 2020 during the investigation of which&comma; Loveworld Limited gave <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;washingtonpost&period;com&sol;">Ofcom<&sol;a> a number of assurances as to how it would improve its compliance procedures&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;