Office National d’Edition et de Presse (ONEP)

The Office National d’Édition et de Presse (ONEP) is Niger’s state-owned publishing house, established by Ordinance n° 89-26 of 8 December 1989 as an établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial (EPIC) under the supervision of the Ministry of Communication and New Information Technologies. It is the editor of the flagship French-language daily Le Sahel, its weekly Sunday supplement Sahel Dimanche, and a quarterly magazine Sahel MAG. The institution operates from its Place du Petit Marché headquarters in Niamey, with regional bureaux including Maradi, Tahoua, Zinder and Diffa, the latter confirmed in official ministerial visits during 2025.

Le Sahel itself is older than ONEP as an institution: the daily emerged on 29 April 1974 when Le Temps du Niger was renamed under the Conseil Militaire Suprême, 14 days after Lieutenant-Colonel Seyni Kountché’s 15 April 1974 coup overthrew the first post-independence president, Hamani Diori. The wider state-press lineage also includes earlier titles such as Le Niger and the weekly tradition that later became Sahel Dimanche. Le Sahel marked its fiftieth anniversary in April 2024 with a special anniversary issue tracing its successive editorial generations, and ONEP, formally created in 1989 as the publishing-house structure consolidating the state press, has carried the title forward as its primary public-information vehicle ever since.

Media assets

Publishing: Le Sahel, Le Sahel Dimanche, Sahel MAG

Ownership and governance

ONEP is a state-owned public establishment, organised as an établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial (EPIC), under the supervision of the Ministry of Communication and New Information Technologies. The institution is steered by a Board of Directors appointed by the government and is led by a Director-General appointed by the Council of Ministers under executive decree. The current Director-General is Alou Moustapha, appointed by the Council of Ministers in early November 2023 in the same wider wave of public-media appointments and confirmations that placed Abdoulaye Coulibaly at the head of Radio-Télévision du Niger and reconducted Malam Mamane Dalatou at the news agency ANP. ONEP has no statutory editorial-independence safeguard, no published editorial charter and no independent complaints mechanism, and its supervising ministry, the Ministry of Communication and New Information Technologies, headed by Adji Ali Salatou since the 17 April 2025 cabinet reshuffle, exercises direct administrative authority over the institution’s governance.

Source of funding and budget

ONEP relies primarily on state allocations, with secondary revenue from advertising in Le Sahel and Sahel Dimanche, cover-price sales and printing services for state publications. The State Media Monitor review records that no audited financial statements are published and that, according to sector observers, the institution’s solvency is dependent on government funding. State support also takes the form of capital equipment: in August 2024 the government supplied ONEP with a new four-colour Heidelberg printing machine, acquired on public funds at an approximate cost of one billion CFA francs. In January 2023 ONEP raised the cover prices of its publications in a modest attempt to shore up its own revenue base. The financial stress visible across Niger’s state-media cluster during the review period is consistent with the budgetary picture surfaced by RTN’s leadership in May 2025 (operations conducted on the basis of monthly provisional allocations rather than an approved annual budget) though no equivalent on-the-record statement from ONEP’s leadership has been identified.

Editorial independence

ONEP operates under no statutory pro-government editorial mandate, but the State Media Monitor review records that the institution displays a “distinct pro-government tilt” in practice, with much of its news content drawn from official press releases and little visible dissent from government narratives. A May 2024 independent assessment commissioned by SMM placed ONEP firmly within this pattern, and that pattern has deepened since the 26 July 2023 military coup that brought the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) to power and led to the formal swearing-in of General Abdourahamane Tchiani as President of the Transition on 26 March 2025.

A distinguishing feature of ONEP during the review period is the on-the-record editorial alignment of its leadership: Director-General Alou Moustapha personally writes signed editorials and a weekly “Chronique du lundi” column in Le Sahel, including pieces directly advancing the junta’s “refoundation” agenda: examples published under his byline include “Affirmer notre souveraineté et imposer le respect” (March 2025) and “Merci Monsieur le Président !” (April 2025). The visible alignment of the Director-General’s own editorial voice with the transition authorities’ messaging provides direct, on-record evidence of DG-level editorial alignment with the SC classification’s underlying governance arrangement.

These conditions place ONEP firmly in the State-Controlled (SC) category. The institution is a state-owned EPIC supervised by the Ministry of Communication and New Information Technologies, with leadership appointed through executive channels and no published editorial charter, ombudsman or independent complaints mechanism. It remains dependent on state support, including public allocations and capital-equipment provision such as the August 2024 four-colour printing machine, while its Director-General personally authors editorials in Le Sahel that align with the transition authorities’ sovereignty and refoundation messaging. The 2025 digital expansion through the ONEP INFO mobile application, the ministerial visits to the Niamey headquarters and the regional bureaux, and the confirmed regional presence in Diffa have not altered ONEP’s ownership, appointment system, funding dependence or editorial-governance safeguards. The SC classification therefore continues to apply for 2026.

AI and digital policy

Although ONEP has carried editorial coverage of AI and disinformation debates during the review period, no ONEP-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified. ONEP maintains a digital presence through its lesahel.org platform, the ONEP INFO mobile application launched in September 2025, and a downloadable PDF edition of Le Sahel, but no sector-specific framework governing AI-generated or synthetic content in Niger’s state-owned print and online media was identified during this review.

May 2026