Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, the former Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children's Affairs, has expressed her intention to lodge a complaint against Victor Jones, the editor of iVerify, with the Independent Media Commission (IMC). This dispute arose following iVerify's assertion that Blyden's commentary on the National Election Watch (NEW) analysis of the June 24 election results was false.
iVerify promptly refuted Blyden's claim, stating, "The assertion made by Sylvia Olayinka Blyden on her Facebook account, alleging that Marcella Samba Sesay's NEW only provided results for 747 out of 11,832 polling stations, is untrue." Blyden reacted to iVerify's statement, arguing that they were mistaken in declaring her analysis inaccurate and requested a retraction from the platform.
While some believed that the matter had been resolved, a recent post by the former minister indicated otherwise. Blyden criticized Victor Jones, the individual in charge of SLAJ's iVerify, for being ignorant about the process of passing legal statutory instruments in Parliament and accused him of producing misleading content under the guise of "fact-checking" for public consumption. Blyden specifically referred to Jones' comments to a foreign media outlet regarding the APC's boycott of Parliament.
Blyden has informed Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, the President of SLAJ, about her plans to take action against Jones. She stated, "I have just informed the SLAJ President that Jones will have a meeting with me upon my return to Freetown, where I will pursue redress through the Independent Media Commission."