By Afi Edoh

The role of technology in aiding the Covid-19 fight in Africa is increasingly undisputed. As Covid-19 cases have grown in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, governments and the private sector have played a decisive role in the three countries’ technology-based response measures, with large scale national efforts to minimise the social-economic impact of the pandemic.

In Ghana, in the wake of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health partnered with the Ministry of Information to leverage websites, USSD short codes, toll free lines, alongside broadcast media to share with the citizenry information on the virus spread and response management measures. The government also rolled out utility (water and electricity) subsidies and reduced from 9% to 5% the communications service tax as part of its relief interventions. Telecommunications operators also supported the fight against Covid-19, with MTN and Vodafone supporting distance learning with zero-rated access to education content for subscribers.

In Togo, in a move to promote cashless transactions, telecommunications operator Moov waived fees on mobile money transactions and payments for utilities. Meanwhile, the Association of Volunteers for the Promotion of Youth (AV-JEUNES) launched a mobile application which provides reliable information on Covid-19, practical advice and awareness videos in French and four additional local languages. Initially intended to provide sexual and reproductive health information to youth, women and vulnerable populations, the platform known as eCentre Convival has supported the fight against misinformation and helped educate pregnant women and young people about the coronavirus. In the telecommunications sector, service providers rolled out reduced price offers and doubled internet speeds.

Meanwhile, partly to fight the spread of false and misleading information on the virus, Orange Cote d’Ivoire launched a media platform to allow print, online and broadcast media to keep abreast of its Covid-19 response and relief measures. MTN and the Ivorian government partnered to support data-driven decision making in the fight against the virus. Like in Ghana, MTN Cote d’Ivoire waived mobile money transaction fees and subsidised internet services. As part of social-economic relief strategies, the Ivorian government announced a grace period for utility service payments.

 Covid 19- Statistics at April 2021

These examples from the three countries point to a variety of ways in which governments, telecommunications operators and innovators have ensured service continuity, promoted digitalisation and access to reliable information in the face of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

Indeed, an opinion assessment through an online survey and interviews conducted by the author among 42 individuals, indicated that online platforms including social media were the primary means through which citizens in the three countries stayed informed during the pandemic. However, whereas there have been efforts to provide content in local languages, English and French remained predominant, excluding illiterate segments of the population.

As stated by one respondent, “the exponential growth of online platforms in the wake of Covid-19 will have a powerful effect on the digital economy, enabling business and the public sector to explore new service offerings, with significant efficiency gains.” The respondent added that with a supportive policy and legislative environment, alongside infrastructure roll out and more local language options, across the three countries, “entire sectors and traditional business models, whether in the field of transport, hospitality or automotive industry will be transformed.”

Afi Edoh is a CIPESA Fellow exploring  digital transformation and the digital economy in Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo during the Covid-19 pandemic, to determine value and innovation opportunities as well as challenges.

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The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) condemns the death threat against journalist Jonas Baikeh of the Ivorian news website L’infodrome, who was on reporting duty at the funeral of Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko in Séguéla, on March 17, 2021.

Jonas Baikeh was accused of disclosing some information about the ill-health of Bouaké Fofana, Chief Executive Officer of the state housing corporation, SICOGI (Société Ivoirienne de Construction et de Gestion Immobilière), who is also the president of the Worodougou regional council in charge of organising the funeral of the late Prime Minister.

According to several witnesses, the president of the Worodougou regional council, Bouaké Fofana, felt sick and nearly collapsed, but for the vigilance of his immediate neighbours. Mr. Fofana was evacuated to a health facility in the city.

The incident occurred during a meeting with the youth at the local headquarters of the RHDP (Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace), in the presence of municipal and district authorities and journalists, including Jonas Baikeh.

Baikeh’s misfortune was to have relayed the information in real-time on the website that sent him on the mission.

The supporters of the SICOGI CEO decided to silence the journalist, ordering him to leave the city before 6 pm or risk losing his life. The information was confirmed by several newspapers including L’infodrome.

A journalist with L’Inter newspaper also confirmed the facts on his Facebook page.

“The relatives of Bouaké Fofana are angry with L’infodrome’s journalist who took part in a meeting of the Rhdp on Wednesday morning. During this meeting, their mentor, Bouaké Fofana, had a malaise and was evacuated to a health centre. When informed about the release of the information, the relatives of the SICOGI’s CEO decided to silence him forever. This incident took place after 6pm. At present, the journalist has taken refuge in an undisclosed location. We will come back to him!” said Venance Kokora.

Due to the threat on his life, the journalist had to return to Abidjan for his own safety and in order not to be trapped in a hideout where the worst could happen.

The death threat against journalist Jonas Baikeh by the supporters of SICOGI’s CEO is a serious violation of press freedom. While condemning the attack, the MFWA urges political leaders to educate their supporters on the important role of journalists in informing the public.

The organisation further calls for an investigation into this unjustified attack on the journalist and demands that the perpetrators be punished.

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As reporters continue to be harassed and threatened over their coverage of the campaign for Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential election at the end of the month, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the country’s politicians to stop regarding journalists at their opponents and let them do their job of reporting the news.

As reporters continue to be harassed and threatened over their coverage of the campaign for Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential election at the end of the month, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the country’s politicians to stop regarding journalists at their opponents and let them do their job of reporting the news.

Several journalists working for foreign media outlets, including Radio France Internationale correspondent Pierre Pinto, were threatened on social media during an opposition rally in Abidjan’s Félix Houphouët Boigny Stadium on 11 October.

Shortly after arriving, Pinto tweeted: “The opposition’s anti-third-term rally is so far struggling to fill FHB stadium. Speakers accuse the authorities of blocking buses of supporters at Yopougon. Opposition leaders have yet to arrive.” This triggered a spate of reactions including one in which an opposition leader wondered whether journalists shouldn’t be physically attacked.

Pinto told RSF that the comment he tweeted along with a video shortly after arriving set off “an avalanche of more and more vehement and aggressive reactions,” which he didn’t notice until the end of the day. He meanwhile covered the meeting live on the air forRFI and sent reports for the next morning’s news show. “But the only thing obsessing the people on Twitter was the video showing a still half-empty stadium.”

Other recent targets include Afriksoir news website promoter André Sylver Konan and Abidjan.net reporter Félix Diby Boni, who were subjected to threats and verbal attacks from politicians in connection with their political coverage.

Deutsche Welle’s Côte d’Ivoire correspondent, Julien Adayé, was meanwhile roughed up by police in the north Abidjan suburb of Abobo while covering an opposition protest against President Alassane Ouattara’s controversial decision to run for a third term.

“These threats against journalists, who are just doing their job by reporting what they see in the field, are serious and disturbing,” said Assane Diagne, the director of RSF’s West Africa office. “They are all the more worrying because journalists have fallen victim to the worst forms of violence in times of political tension in the past in Côte d’Ivoire. We urge politicians to stop treating journalists as their opponents and stop targeting them, because they have an essential role to play in the electoral process.”

Those who ordered French-Canadian journalist Guy André Kieffer’s murder in Abidjan in 2004 are still at large, while the policeman who murdered RFI’s correspondent, Abidjan-based French journalist Jean Hélène, in 2003, is due to be released on 27 October on completing a 17-year prison sentence.

Côte d’Ivoire is ranked 69th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

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A journalist who had gone to a prison facility in Abidjan to interview a warden about allegations of the extortion of prisoners by one of the prison officers was assaulted and detained in a prison cell.

Claude Dasse of L’Intelligent d’Abidjan newspaper, went to the Maison d’Arret et de Correction d’Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s largest civilian prison after obtaining an appointment to speak to Hincleban Koné, warden of the facility.

When Dasse arrived at the prison, he was rather received by Koné Kassoum, the alleged mastermind of the fraudulent dealings.

Kassoum got infuriated when Dasse asked whether he could record the interview and threw the journalist into one of the prison cells.

“They kept me there for about 4 hours. They beat me here and there. When he let me go, Koné Kassoum warned me not to write anything on what happened, nor on the subject for which I had come. Otherwise, it’ll be my death,” Dassé told the local media.

The MFWA condemns the physical attack on Dasse and his subsequent detention by the prison officers and urges the prison authorities to investigate the incident and bring Kassoum to book. We also call on the police to thoroughly investigate the threat against Dasse and provide him protection to enable him to carry out his duties in safety.

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A court in Côte d’Ivoire has ordered two journalists to pay a total of five million CFA Francs (USD 8,384) in fines for publishing a press release issued by the lawyers of an imprisoned opposition Member of Parliament.

Coulibaly Vamara and Paul Koffi, Managing Editors of the privately-owned Inter Press and Le Nouveau Réveil newspapers respectively, were, on March 31, 2020, ordered by a Magistrates’ Court in Abidjan to pay a fine of 2.5 million CFA francs (USD 4,192) each.

The two journalists published a statement from the lawyers of the incarcerated Alain Lobognon, which raised concerns about the poor condition in which the lawmaker is being detained, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The statement also called for the release of Lobognon who was imprisoned in December 2019.

The MFWA is concerned about the increasing number of journalists and media outlets being fined in Cote d’Ivoire by courts and the media regulatory body for perceived offences.

In the last month, six journalists have been fined in connection with their work. On March 3, 2020, Yacouba Gbande and Barthelemy Tehin, from Le Temps, were fined USD 8,600 by a court for press offenses. On March 25, 2020, a similar fate befell Cissé Sindou and Marc Dossa from the newspaper Générations Nouvelles who were fined USD 8,600 also for press offences by a court.

The MFWA is concerned about the continuous use of prohibitive fines against journalists in Côte d’Ivoire for perceived acts of unprofessionalism. The practice has the tendency to affect the sustainability of the media in the country.

The MFWA finds the court’s decision in the case of Vamara and Paul Koffi very curious. There is no doubt that Lobogbon is an unwanted person within the corridors of power in Côte d’Ivoire. But to penalise the editors of a newspaper for publishing a press release that is sympathetic to the imprisoned politician is to carry the hostility too far, especially when the authors of the statement have not been found to have committed any offense. We therefore denounce the decision and urge the journalists to appeal the decision in the hope that justice will be served.

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In what is becoming a worrying crackdown on freedom of expression online in Cote d’Ivoire, a court in Abidjan has sentenced an opposition Member of Parliament to one year in prison for a post on Twitter.

Alain Lobognon, the opposition Member of Parliament, was also fined CFA Francs 300,000 (about US$ 550) after being pronounced guilty of “disseminating false publication and incitement to revolt on social networks” on January 29, 2019. The persecutors had cited Articles 173,174,175 and 178 paragraph 2 of the Ivoirian penal code.

On January 8, 2019, Lobognon published on Twitter that the State Prosecutor would soon order the arrest of another parliamentarian, Jacques Ehoua, who is under investigation for suspected acts of embezzlement. The prosecutor denied Lobognon’s claim and ordered his arrest and subsequent detention on January 15, 2019.

Despite a protest from Parliament that Lobognon was entitled to parliamentary immunity under Articles 92 and 45 of the constitution and National Assembly internal regulations, he was detained until his eventual conviction.

Lobognon’s lawyers say it is “a political trial” and have vowed to appeal the sentence. They also link his trial to their client’s outspoken opposition to President Alassane Ouattara’s possible third-mandate ambitions.

“It is a political trial, just because Mr. Alain Lobognon is close to Guillaume Soro [Speaker of Parliament who has fallen out with president Ouattara] and because Alain Lobognon has spoken out against attempts by the President of the republic to stand for a third term,” Affousiata Bamba, one of the defense lawyers, told reporters after the judgement was passed.

The prosecution of Lobognon follows a recent trend of attacks on freedom of expression online.

On January 28, 2019, Daleba Nahounou, who is the Acting Secretary General of the political pressure group, Coalition of des Indignés de la Côte d’Ivoire, appeared before a judge at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Abidjan over a Facebook post in which the political activist had criticised the Ivorian authorities for abuse of power.

Although Nahounou was not detained, his freedom is far from guaranteed as the trial continues.

The crackdown has also seen the police detain and molest a young man, Soro Tangboho, who filmed and posted a video of police officers allegedly extorting money from motorists in the Northern town of Khorogo. Tangboho was arrested on November 8, 2018 after he published the video.

After being held for two days at the police station in Khorogo, where he was allegedly beaten, Tangboho was transferred to the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance and finally to the Abidjan Detention and Correctional Center where he is still being held without trial.

“My son has not seen the judge since his incarceration; he is currently sick. His body swells and he suffers from heartaches,” Tangboho’s mother lamented to reporters.

MFWA is deeply concerned about the repression of freedom of expression online in Cote d’Ivoire. For a country that has decriminalised libel, one would expect the Ivorian authorities to demonstrate a higher level of tolerance for the kind of expressions contained in this report which are more indiscreet than criminal. We urge the authorities to respect citizens’ right to freedom of expression both offline and online which the country’s constitution guarantees.

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The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and its national partner organisations in West Africa have welcomed the decision of the Ivorian government to withdraw the controversial press bill, sections of which sought to criminalise speech.

It would be recalled that on May 5, 2017, the Ivorian government introduced in Parliament a press and audiovisual bill to be considered for passage on May 31, 2017.

Following the laying of the bill before the Ivorian Parliament, the MFWA and its national partners in West Africa petitioned President Alassane Ouattara on May 22, asking him to intervene to ensure the withdrawal of portions of the bill that were considered repressive. The MFWA and its partners were particularly concerned about Article 90 of the bill which proposes fines of up to 3,000,000 francs CFA (US$4,988) and up to five years in prison for certain press offenses.

On May 29, the government announced its decision to withdraw the bill for further consideration following concerns raised.

“Having heard the concerns of the people, the government has decided to give itself some more time before passing the press and audiovisual bill. This will enable the government some space to listen to, analyse the criticisms and subject the bill to the necessary scrutiny for a text of this kind,” said the Ivorian Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Bruno Nabagné Kone.

The MFWA and its partner organisations commend President Alassane Ouattara and the Ivorian government for responding favourably to public concerns and our petition and withdrawing the bill.

“The withdrawal of the bill is welcome news. It is indeed a sign of a progressive and listening government. We, however, hope it is not just a means of calming down tempers so the bill can be reintroduced later and passed with all the repressive elements still present,” said Executive Director of MFWA, Sulemana Braimah.

The MFWA encourages the government to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach in reviewing the bill to ensure that the interests of both the state and the public, particularly the media, are protected.

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On May 5, 2017, authorities in Cote d’Ivoire introduced to the country’s parliament a new media bill containing provisions that criminalise press offences. The introduction of the bill occasioned spontaneous protests and condemnation by the media and press freedom community in the country.

On May 3, 2017 as the world celebrated World Press Freedom Day, members of the Ivorian media fraternity and free expression advocates marched to denounce the imminent introduction of the controversial law. The development is considered a major roll back of gains that had been made in improving press freedom in the ongoing post-conflict democratic processes.

Sections of the new bill prescribe prison terms of up to three years for certain offences. The bill when passed into law will also allow for the imposition of fines of up to 3,000,000 CFA Francs (approximately US$4,988) for other offences. In a country where press freedom is already challenged by a number of legal and non-legal restrictions, the bill, when passed into law, could have a further chilling effect on the media.

A provision in the new bill deemed be very broad states that a person “is liable to a prison term of one to five years and a fine of 300,000 to 3,000,000 CFA Francs, anyone who by means of press or by others means of publication: incite to theft and vandalism, murder, to set fire to and destroy, by which ever means, public or private propriety; to any forms of violence against individuals and institutions or on their properties, or justifies the same crimes or offences; who incites to xenophobia, hateful speech, racial hatred and all forms of hate speech; glorifies war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide crimes or collaboration with the enemy, incites military and security forces to insubordination and rebellion, acts against the national territorial integrity, internal and external security of the state.”

While it would seem logical that anyone, including journalists, who commits any of above offences should answer for their actions, the above provision is open to a wide range of subjective interpretations and can be exploited by politicians and influential people to settle scores with critical journalists. This in turn has the potential to compel the media into self-censorship.

Again, Articles 174 and 175 of the Ivorian Criminal Code adequately take care of such infractions. A new bill specifically targeting the media is therefore alarming as it suggests a new resolve by the authorities to “deal with” the media.

The provisions of the intended new media law is particularly worrying giving that it seeks to replace the existing press law of 2004, which makes it clear that press offences shall not liable to prison sentences.

“We are worried about the intended law; there are some articles which are disturbing in this new bill,” said Moussa Traoré, president of Cote d’Ivoire National Union of Journalists (Union Nationale des Journalistes de la Cote d’Ivoire – UNJCI).

The MFWA is worried about the intended introduction of the repressive legislation. “Already, the Ivorian media have been going through many forms of repression including regular suspension of media outlets by regulatory bodies and attacks on journalists,” said Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the MFWA.

The intended law is a piece of legislation that will further cripple the media in the country and that will not bode well for the ongoing post-conflict recovery and the democratic consolidation processes in Cote d’Ivoire. The MFWA urges the Ivorian authorities to remove from the bill, provisions that criminalise media and speech offences. The MFWA also urges the media community and other actors to prevail on the authorities to focus on improving media freedom in the country rather than adopting measures that will further constrict an already repressed media environment

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Six journalists detained on February 12, 2017 for reporting on a recent mutiny by Ivoirian soldiers, have been released.

Coulibaly Vamara and Hamadou Ziao of Inter newspaper; Bamba Franck Mamadou of Notre Voie; Gbané Yacouba and Ferdinand Bailly of Le Temps and Jean Bédel Gnago of Soir Info regained provisional freedom on February 14, after spending 48 hours in detention.

Announcing the journalists’ release to the Agence Frace Presse (AFP), Guillaume Gbato, a leading member of le Syndicat de la presse privée en Côte d’Ivoire, the umbrella organisation of the private press in the country, said the six journalists, are however still under “charges of undermining state security and inciting soldiers to acts of insubordination and rebellion.” He added that “there is some relief, but we are calling for all the charges pressed against our colleagues to be dropped.”

Many media organisations, both national and international, protested against the arrests which they consider as a blatant attack on media freedom.

The MFWA welcomes the release of the six journalists and urge the authorities to discontinue their prosecution.

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According to the MFWA correspondent in Cote d’Ivoire, the journalist, Koffi Kouassi Norbert – who writes under the pen name Norbert N’Kaka – narrated that the youth attacked his home shortly after he was summoned by the deputy Mayor of Dabou, Sessi Soukou.

According to the journalist, the deputy mayor was himself equally unhappy about his write ups. He said that soon after he appeared before the deputy mayor, a group of young people numbering about 50 went to attack his house.

“They broke my door and went inside. All my children are traumatised. But for the intervention of a neighbour, they would have locked them in and left with the keys. They then proceeded to my fish store, locked it and threw the keys away,” the journalist told the Agence Ivoirienne de la Presse.

Reports indicate that the youth are also demanding that the journalist be banished from the town.

The MFWA condemns the incident and calls on the Ivorian authorities to investigate the matter and bring the culprits to book. We also call on the authorities to offer the journalist the necessary protection to enable him to continue with his journalistic work.

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