(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 October 2005, radio host Nouhou Arzika was attacked by Moussa Dan Foulani, a businessman with close ties to the government. Arzika is president of the Coalitian Against the High Cost of Living and also hosts two programmes on privately-owned radio stations. Arzika was meeting with a US embassy employee at his […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 October 2005, radio host Nouhou Arzika was attacked by Moussa Dan Foulani, a businessman with close ties to the government. Arzika is president of the Coalitian Against the High Cost of Living and also hosts two programmes on privately-owned radio stations.
Arzika was meeting with a US embassy employee at his organisation’s Niamey headquarters when Foulani arrived in a Mercedes 4×4 vehicle with diplomatic plates. Two of the businessman’s associates – “anglophone hired assassins,” according to Arzika – then attacked the radio host, while the US embassy employee managed to flee. The businessman threatened the journalist with a pistol, saying, “Today you will die. You will no longer insult anyone on the radio or elsewhere.” When he tried to fire his gun “the weapon did not work,” Arzika told RSF.
Moustapha Kadi, one of Arzika’s colleagues, arrived at the scene just as the attack was taking place. “When I arrived there at 11:00 a.m. I saw some people running and others warned me not to go in there, saying I would be killed. When I went inside the building, I saw Dan Foulani pointing his gun at Nouhou, who was lying on the ground. Two men were holding him down by force. One of them had a club and the other man was trying to choke him.”
The three attackers left the scene after the the attack, taking Arzika’s cellular phone with them. Kadi managed to take a photograph of the vehicle using his own cellular phone. The attack took place only one hour after the airing of a programme hosted by Arzika on the private radio station R&M.
The day after the attack, the journalist filed a complaint with the national police. When contacted by RSF, a police commander refused to comment on the incident. He did tell Arzika and his colleague, however, that Foulani had been detained for questioning and later released.
Arzika and Kadi host a programme on Sundays on Ténéré FM radio station and also host a twice-weekly programme on R&M. Their programmes focus on the problems linked to the rising cost of many basic consumer products and corruption involving businessmen and the local elite. Foulani has been accused of corruption on the programmes several times.
