There are areas of Africa where it is difficult to work as a journalist. A journalist risks being jailed or even killed. Nevertheless, the number of investigating teams reporting on conflicts and revealing corruption and criminal trading is on the increase. They are not deterred even when threatened.

A man is assassinated. A Ghanaian journalist. A troublesome journalist. How do we describe the working conditions of investigative journalists in Africa countries, what are they working on, with what means and with what results?  The answer is, above all, that there are many of them and they are doing an excellent job. Thanks to them many dark and shameful deeds have come to light. They are men and women who have reported and are still reporting on civil wars and genocides, abuses and violations of human rights, governments of institutionalised theft and the background to coups.

Ahmed Hussein-Suale, an investigative journalist who was killed by gunmen.

We begin with the man who was assassinated. It happened last January. His name was Ahmed Hussein-Suale and he had been working on very sensitive enquiries. One of them was corruption in the world of football which led  – among other things – to the exposure of the president of the Ghana Football Association, Kwesi Nyantakyi.
The thirty two-year-old journalist was the right-hand man of Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the best-known investigating journalist in sub-Saharan Africa, working under cover for years. Corroborated by video films showing the corruption of Ghana High Court judges, his work stirred up a storm. About twenty of the judges were accused of taking bribes, others were sacked.  Anas heads the Tiger Eye private investigation. Their investigations were broadcast by the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera and many other foreign channels. In this way, they not only informed the international public on the misdeeds taking place in the continent but also demonstrated that there are trustworthy local professionals, capable of making their presence felt in the field, reporting on ‘African questions’.

Journalist Victims

Being a journalist can be a dangerous occupation. Hussein-Suale is the latest in a long list. In the period from 1992 until today, 166 journalists have been killed in sub-Saharan African countries (data provided by the CPJ – the Commission for the Protection of Journalists). Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Angola… contributed most to the bloodshed. Some were working for the international media, others for local TV, radio and newspapers. There are some women among them. We must add to the list the unknown number of journalists killed in prison.

For 98% of the victims – assassinated or killed in attacks, war or guerrilla operations  – there has been no justice. The crimes have gone unpunished. There are also other ways of keeping journalists quiet: self-censoring, paying for their silence, denying publicity in newspapers or threatening reprisals, and so prevent the profession being developed. Yet, in recent years, there have been some training initiatives and schools for specialisations in many countries, while the number of students following courses in journalism at university is increasing. There are also organisations whose purpose is to support journalists – they sometimes even cover investigating expenses  – but above all else, to create a sharing network. This applies to the AIPC (African Investigating and Publishing Collective). It has 24 journalists, one of whom is a woman, the twenty five year-old Somalian, Muno Mohamed Geedi, who has investigated female genital mutilation inflicted on young girls in her country, the sale of humanitarian supplies in refugee camps and the al-Shabaab movement.

Panama Papers

Among AIPC partners are: Global investigative journalism network, the European network Zam, a platform for online investigative journalism in the continent of Africa and Tiger Eye, of which the journalist recently killed in Accra was a member. It is worth mentioning some of the enquiries carried out through teamwork investigations. Most prominent of all is Panama Papers, a meticulous research that produced a huge amount of documentation showing how African politicians, administrators, and leaders have plundered the resources and funds of their countries, moving money to secure off-shore havens. The work involved a team of investigative journalists in seven countries of the continent and also the work of Africa Uncensored, established in Kenya by the best Kenyan reporters.

There were also enquiries that opened up the cracks in the war on terrorism, as it is fought, and which led to a worsening of the situation in Kenya and  Mali. Or on how human trafficking works in Nigeria. Also among the networks formed to ‘reinforce’ the capacity and means of investigative journalism in Africa is the ANCIR, the African network for Centres for Investigative Reporting. When we speak of investigative journalism in Africa, we must remember the many affairs that reverberate internationally, like the Panama Papers, which were brought to the surface and diffused by African journalists.
One of these is the case of  Nigerian Idris Akibajo and the local publication ‘Premium Times’ which shed light on the mechanisms of appropriation of the oil reserves of the country by powerful Nigerians (starting with the former dictator Sani Abacha) and their concessions to the multinationals ENI and Shell – on payment of bribes, as shown by successive enquiries regarding the famous Opl-245 license. Neither must we forget Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was not only a poet and activist, a writer and TV producer who was hanged in 1995 for having repeatedly denounced what the government and the multinationals were doing in the Niger delta to the detriment, not only of the environment but also of the local people, the Ogoni.

Rafael Marques de Morais

Or the great Kenyan photo-journalist, Mo Amin, who showed the world the great Ethiopian famine in the eighties; or the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the first photos of which were diffused in Africa by a Ugandan reporter, Sheila Kawamara; or the Angolan journalist, Rafael Marques de Morais, whose continual condemning of corruption and the violation of human rights cost him his job and landed him in prison. Also worthy of note is his work on the mining of diamonds which culminated in the ‘Blood-soaked Diamonds inquiry: corruption, torture in Angola’  (2011). Two years of research that also showed the involvement of foreign companies. On a different front, we find the excellent inquiries of Senegalese Sorious Samura whose notable works include an inquiry on homosexuality in Africa.

Antonella Sinopoli

Criticisms force governments to place restrictions on the Internet. Serious violations of human rights and grave consequences for local economies. At the same time, systems for by-passing the controls are proliferating.

A method of closing down the Internet was implemented on a large scale in Egypt during the Arab Spring of 2011.  Now it is in use everywhere. In Africa, the system is approved by the leaders who do not take kindly to criticism. However, things are not that simple, mainly for two reasons: firstly because there are ways to bypass the closure of the internet (and of the social media); secondly, the results seem to be counterproductive.

Last year, 21 African countries imposed Internet closure. In 2017 they numbered 13. Some of the countries involved – some more than once – Togo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Sudan.
In these few months of 2019, things are no better. There has been censorship in Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Chad. The latter, especially, imposed a shutdown more than a year ago. There are many countries where there has been, for decades, a sort of “monarchic democracy” which leaves no room for change (such as Togo and Chad). The same applies to countries undergoing a deep economic crisis, like Zimbabwe, or on alert because of breakaway struggles like Cameroon (where blackouts have affected, or still mainly affect the Anglophone area).

Uganda has several times violated the freedom of the press and of speech. The case that occurred in 2016 – when, during elections, citizens were deprived of access to Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and even of SMS exchanges – ended up in the High Court. The telephone companies, the Procurator General and the Communications Commission were brought to court by Unwanted Witness, a netizen network (people who actively participate in Internet life), bloggers and activists in the field of human rights. The verdict was postponed several times but the action shows that citizens are getting organised.
Another such case is that of Ethiopia where, in 2017, the communication networks were closed down during nation-wide school exams. The reason? To prevent students being given the answers. In fact, there are many reasons for preventing communication between citizens. The main one is that of “national security”. Governments often defend themselves insisting that, when there are protests, it is necessary to prevent co-ordination among the “rioters”. There are also those who say they limit access to social media to “avoid the diffusion of fake news”. Naturally, this news concerns criticism and decisions by the government or the head of state.  Nevertheless, citizens are becoming organised, not only in bringing cases to court, but also by the exchange of information.

Blocking systems

The question is how to get around the blocking methods. The commonest method is the use of the VPN (Virtual private network). It is a system (and also an app that can be downloaded onto a mobile phone) which allows anyone to go on line without revealing their address and bypassing the navigation restrictions. VPN sends online activity to a computer situated outside the controlled area, in a different geographical location. In this way, the Internet and the social media are assured. This technology does, of course, protect the anonymity of the “supporting network”.

As well as VPN, there are other tools capable of removing the gags put in place by iron-fisted states or by police controls. Tor, for example, allows one to navigate with complete anonymity since the geographical location is not traceable and the archives of the sites visited are unavailable. Another one is called Psiphon, that helps to penetrate filters and blockages as well. Yet another, called Orbo, allows the use of encrypted messages. Then there is the peer-to-peer networks that allows people in an area with a free network to share it with someone in another area subject to limitations. Perhaps one of these tools is being used by the anonymous journalist, who calls himself J and who edits  Eritrean Press, a Facebook page that allows criticism and political satire in a country that is second-last with regard to freedom of the press.

However, we must still be on our guard, Governments also have their own experts in information technology. That of Ethiopia, in fact, discovered that these alternative systems were being used and succeeded in blocking them. The network that is most used and downloaded is VPN. For example, is the one is used in recent weeks to communicate in Zimbabwe, ever since the executive decided to reply to the protests resulting from a 150% increase in the price of petrol. There is also a very easy way for those not familiar with apps and anti-censure systems: get close to the border and use the network of the bordering country.

Agreements with providers

But what makes it so easy to deprive one’s citizens of the Internet? The answer is simple. There are agreements (even contracts) between  Internet Service Providers (owned, in some cases, by the state) and governments which allow the latter to ask for restrictions on access to a Network and some social media for “reasons of national security” or due to questions of  “public order”.  The same applies to the telephone companies that have to follow government policies.

They cannot do otherwise without, obviously, sustaining large losses. They are not the only ones. The economies of the countries lose millions of dollars for each blackout day. It has been calculated that, depending on the network speed, between 0.4% and 1.9% of GDP is lost. Then there are local and international companies that lose out as does the tourism sector. Different studies have discovered the financial effects of such policies. According to a report by Cipesa (an organisation for the spread of technology and information),Sub-Saharan Africa alone has lost at least 237 million dollars due to Internet blockages from 2015 to 2017 (today, losses are much greater). Rights have been violated. Freedom of the press, of speech and the use of the Internet, which the UN also declared in 2011 to be a human right, stating that “disconnecting people is a violation of international law. It was just then that the shutdown began.

Antonella Sinopoli