A crusading publisher pushes Niger's limits

Maman Abou's anti-corruption scoops are profitable, but dangerous to report.

from the April 17, 2007 edition

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Niger's tribulations aren't linked only to a lack of natural resources, an unforgiving climate, or a high birthrate, Abou insisted. Instead, the devastating problems in Niger have been exacerbated by corrupt government officials who use public money for personal enrichment and by a general lack of political will to improve the country and raise people out of poverty, he said.

"Today we can't do the simplest things, like meet generally accepted accounting principles or prepare the beginning of the school year in May so that when school starts in October everything's ready. We don't even have clean hospitals," he offered. "People pay their taxes to keep up this country. With that money, however modest it is, the government has the responsibility to give the people public services that work."

Although a wealthy man today, Abou came from humble origins, and he partially credits childhood hardship for his interest in Niger's poor. He is a member of the Tuareg, a nomadic ethnic group that makes up 8 percent of the population; his first language is Tamajaq. He grew up in a village "behind the camels of my mother," as he puts it, "in the bush." His mother died when he was young, and Abou remembers his childhood as a chaotic time.

Nonetheless he excelled in school, went to France in 1968 to attend a two-year computer-training course, and became one of West Africa's first computer technicians. He returned to Niger to work at Honeywell Bull and later at the International Bank of West Africa.

In 1991, at a time when democratic values and independent newspapers were starting to appear here, he helped establish Niger's most prominent human rights organization, the Nigerien Association for the Defense of Human Rights. Not long after, he founded Le Républicain – and a tradition of crusading journalism that rubbed successive governments the wrong way. Among many investigative pieces on government corruption, the newspaper's signature scoop was the publication of purported government documents showing that President Hama Amadou paid his mistress from public funds. Abou was thrown in jail for those articles, too.

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