Niger Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
March 15, 2012
About the MSI
IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country's media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and began studying Africa in 2006.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download Complete Niger Chapter (PDF): 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2006/7 (français)
MSI Niger–2010 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.92
A decade of political stability in Niger, ushered in by the general elections of 1999, came to an end by mid-2009, as the country began to recede into another cycle of political turmoil. For the first time since 1991, the country was preparing to undergo a peaceful handover of power from one civilian president to another. But quite unexpectedly, the country lapsed into another political crisis reminiscent of those that paved the way for the military coups of 1996 and 1999.
Up until May 2009, most of Niger’s citizens exuded confidence about the future of democracy in their country—their assurance based largely on signs that relations had become less confrontational between the regime in power and the parliamentary opposition. Thus, in May, when President Mamadou Tandja announced his intention to host a referendum on a new constitution—tailor-made to allow him to stay in power for three more years—he took most of the public by surprise. Soon after the official announcement, political and social advocacy groups in Niger mobilized to condemn the president’s bid to remain in power.
In a show of protest, a number of media outlets imposed a news blackout for a week in July. The plan’s opponents said that the move was obviously designed to bring back authoritarianism, and fundamentally undermined the democratic progress that had been constructed so painstakingly. Nevertheless, in August 2009, the Republic of Niger found itself with a new constitution, following a referendum that was declared unlawful by the Nigerien Constitutional Court.
An upsurge in serious attacks against the freedom of expression accompanied the upheaval. They peaked with the president’s decision to grant the chair of the media regulatory body, the Supreme Council for Communications (CSC), sole power to punish the media and journalists. Furthermore, the president was given the authority to appoint a majority of CSC members. These changes effectively wiped out any semblance of CSC independence. Public and private media outlets alike suffered a great deal throughout
the year at the hands of authorities. In addition to its standard censorship of the public media, the regime did not hesitate to take other steps to hush the media, such as arresting journalists and shutting down private outlets whenever it did not like their tones. The public media, meanwhile, served as propaganda outlets for President Tandja’s bid to hold onto power.
Given these serious steps backwards, MSI scores, especially in respect to Objective 1 (freedom of speech), have slipped from the initial study in 2006/2007. Expressing concern as well over the effects of the extremely unfavorable economic environment, the panelists also judged that the situation of the media sector in Niger had not improved in the context of Objective 4 (business management).
