Niger’s top investigative journalist wins 2024 International Press Award

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CPJ is honored to present its 2024 International Press Freedom Award to Nigerien journalist Samira Sabou.


Samira Sabou is one of Niger’s most prominent investigative journalists, who publishes mainly on her Facebook page and is the president of the Association of Bloggers for Active Citizenship (ABCA), an organization that advocates for freedom of expression and the rights of women and youth. Previously, she worked as a consultant for the Croissance Actualité Afrique (C2A) newspaper, directed the Economic and Social Development Information Magazine (MIDES) news website, and reported with the state-owned National Office of Publishing and Press (ONEP).


Throughout her prestigious career, Sabou has been arrested, detained, and subjected to years of legal harassment because of her reporting on governance issues. In response to the various legal proceedings brought against her, she stopped working for the media and only publishes on her social media accounts.


In July 2023, the Nigerien military seized control of the government in a coup, overthrowing the democratically elected president. In September 2023, four men in plainclothes arrested Sabou without warning at her mother’s home. She was held by the men in an unknown location for eight days and then delivered to the judicial police, where she was able to contact her lawyer. Eleven days after being arrested on suspicion of maintaining “intelligence with a foreign power” and espionage, Sabou was provisionally released. The case is ongoing, though the espionage allegation was subsequently dropped.


Separately, in January 2022, Sabou and another Nigerien investigative journalist, Moussa Aksar, were convicted for violating the cybercrime law. Their appeal of the case is still pending. In 2020, Sabou was arrested on cybercrime charges and spent 48 days in detention while she was pregnant. This case also remains open. The challenges Sabou faces in continuing to cover Niger are similar to those faced by journalists across the Sahel, working under post-coup governments and in a context of insecurity.

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