Confidential Africa – The African press is in mourning. The Mauritanian journalist, Sidi Moctar Cheiguer, a great Ecology fighter in press rooms around the world, is no more. His evacuation to Nouakchott (Mauritanian capital) should take place this afternoon in Niamey where he officiated as a Communication Consultant at the AfDB-Niger office. Confidential Africa pays tribute to him.
Mauritanian journalist Sidi Moctar Cheiguer, working as a Consultant-Communicator at the office of the Representation of the African Development Bank in Niger, died early Wednesday morning March 29 at the referral hospital in Niamey, where he had been interned a few days ago. The media man, founder of the economic monthly L’Essor in the early 2000s, was the founding president of the African Network of Environmental Journalists better known by its English acronym ANEJ. A graduate of the Center d’études des Sciences et Techniques de l’Information (CESTI) in Dakar, Cheiguer worked for a long time in the Radio and Television division of Mauritania before creating his newspaper, a melting pot of plural reflection on the economy of Mauritania and Africa in general.
At CESTI, this cutting-edge academic incubator which trained the great journalists of the African continent, his silhouette was well noticed by the schoolboys of the institute. His classmates, among others, Bocar Niang (ex-Sud Quotidien de Dakar Papa Atoumane DIAW, RTS) still retain the image of him as a diligent student and passionate about journalism, who came from an austere country where there was almost no at all. After two decades of commitment to a plural and respected press in Mauritania, the journalist Sidi Moctar Cheiguer fascinated and commanded the esteem and admiration in the eyes of his African colleagues and those of the world.
In the oven and at the mill, he “liquefied” to borrow the jargon of the harpooners, under the boiler of a declining press that he was trying at all costs to put things back in their right places. Sidi Moctar fought with selflessness and courage and gave his useful time to his job, crisscrossing from one continent to another and surveying the corridors of the pavilions of major international events on current issues such as; climate change, the restoration of the orthodoxy of journalism in Africa, but above all issues relating to political democracy and good governance of the continent’s natural resources. Pure and hard icon of journalism first in Mauritania and beyond the borders of the hot desert and the tents that give off the smells of mint tea and “banava”, this soup with defatted pieces of meat and steamed potatoes , Sidi Moctar was overflowing with endorsement. We were friends and so close.
He took pleasure in contacting me regularly on the phone and left me voice messages in case of unreachability. Consultant at the African Development Bank (AfDB) with residence in Niamey, Sidi Cheiguer, shone at the last African Union summit on the ZLECAF held in the Nigerien capital on November 26, 2022. He was in charge of the institutional communication of the Representation of the ADB-Niger office. In the recent past, he had conducted several strategic studies and capacity building seminars for journalists. In 2011, he developed a Communication Strategy for African Ministries of Environment with the collaboration of UNEP.
For five days during the summit on economic industrialization Zlecaf in Niamey, we left each other only around 10 p.m., after breathtaking round tables. Sidi Moctar Cheiguer spied on everything. Good info above all, let’s say delivering “quality information” was his hobby. He also scoured Senegalese gastronomy. As a good epicurean. No matter where he had to eat his “thiep dieune”, rice with fish, a Senegalese specialty. Two weeks ago in a popular district of Niamey, odds and ends, we were served it, prepared without the broths it hated. He confided in me a lot. In every detail of the vicissitudes of his profession he served with greatness and dignity. His son, the youngest, Sidi Mohamed Cheigueur, miraculously left Tunis where he is studying finance to spend a few days of vacation with the father Sidi Moctar.
In a twist of fate, the journalist, feeling unwell on his prayer mat, was immediately evacuated to the emergency room of the Niamey referral hospital. I visited his bedside twice. With a mind of steel, placing its fate in the hands of its Creator. On his hospital bed, he never stopped doing “Istifars” alongside his son Sidi Mohamed and his brother Mohamed Salem Ould Louly, who came to assist him. His colleagues at the African Development Bank would drop by during visiting hours to check on him.
His evacuation to Spain was in the starting blocks. The device to transport him from Niamey to Spain was scheduled for Wednesday, March 29. Alas, fate dictated its law. Our dear Sidi Moctar Cheiguer passed away early this morning at the referral hospital in Niamey.
The Mauritanian Ambassador to Niger His Excellency Sidati Ould Cheikh Ould Ahmed Aicha took matters into his own hands alongside the other members of the family for his evacuation to Nouakchott this afternoon or in the evening. To his classmates from Cesti, Bocar Niang, El Malick Cissé, Papa Atoumane DIAW, his dear friends, Adama Wade Director of Financial Afrik, Mohamed Lemine Salem of Apanews, Youssouf Diakite of ORTM (Radio Télévision du Mali) , Abba Seidik, Abdoulaye Thiam, who are devastated by this disappearance, I tell them that Sidi is not gone. He, the goldsmith of journalism is always there.. Like an Angel who watches over his green environment and as a Good Fighter for Ecology. Farewell artist!
By Ismael AÏDARA, Editorial Director of Confidential Africa
Source: Africa Confidential
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