Challenges to Freedom of the Press in ECOWAS countries
A number of ECOWAS countries have been in the news in recent months for attacks on press freedom. The map above shows the Reporters Without Borders 2021 rankings for West Africa. The best ranked countries in the region are Ghana (30th) and Burkina Faso (37th). The worst are Nigeria, Benin, and Guinea (109th). Benin had the most dramatic fall, from ranking 91st in 2019 to 114th in 2021. Mali, on the other hand, rose from 112th in 2019 to 99th. Some examples: In June President Buhari of Nigeria banned Twitter , and the parliament attempted to pass a law that "would allow the government to jail journalists, fine newspapers up to 10m naira ($20,000) or close them for up to a year if they publish “fake” news. ... the latest efforts to push through the law come just weeks after Nigeria’s government banned people from using Twitter, and amid increasingly heavy-handed restrictions on broadcast media. Last year Nigeria fell five places (to 120th out of 180) in a ranking of press freed