Domestic Politics

Ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled to finalise the transition to civilian rule, the party alliance, ‘Coordination des Forces pour la Démocratie et la République’ (CFDR), came apart. The CFDR had been formed in 2009 to oppose the continued hold on power by President Tandja – deposed in 2010 by the military for his constitutional putsch the previous year – and that of his party, the ‘Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement’ (MNSD). Local elections, delayed into 2011 as a result of logistical problems, preceded the general contest on 11 January. While 80% of council seats were taken by the country’s four principal parties, the results signalled an end to the dominance of the MNSD, essentially in place since the end of the Cold War. The opposition ‘Parti Nigérien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme’ (PNDS) of Mahamadou Issoufou gained the largest number of council seats. The MNSD lost half its usual vote and came second and, surprisingly, the new ‘Mouvement Démocratique Nigérien’ (Moden-Lumana) of one-time MNSD colleague and rival of Mamadou Tandja, Hama Amadou, came third, cutting deep into the western region, from where the new MNSD leader – Tandja confidant Seyni Oumarou – hailed. The ‘Convention Démocratique et Sociale’ (CDS) of former National Assembly chair Mahamane Ousmane trailed behind.

The relative decline of the MNSD sealed the fate of the CFDR pact. On 25 January, before the legislative elections and the first round of the presidentials – to be held on 31 January – Hama Amadou and Mahamane Ousmane broke with the PNDS and formed a new alliance with the MNSD called ‘Alliance pour la Réconciliation Nationale’ (ARN). They and Seyni Oumarou promised to support whichever of them would make it to the presidential run-off. Isolating Mahamadou Issoufou, this reversal of alliance was meant to limit the damage to Ousmane’s CDS and maintain Hama Amadou’s influence, but it was condemned in the media – the MNSD had, after all, become tainted by Tandja’s 2009 constitutional coup.

The local elections had already shown that, despite its decline, the MNSD could not be completely written off, and the general elections on 31 January confirmed this. In addition to Mahamane Issoufou, Seyni Oumarou, Hama Amadou and Mahamane Ousmane (all but Oumarou long-time established figures), six more people joined the race, including civil society activist Bayard Mariama Gamatié, Niger’s first female presidential contender. PNDS leader Mahamadou Issoufou gained the upper hand with 36.1% of the vote, followed by Seyni Oumarou with 23.2% and Hama Amadou with 19.8%. Mahamane Ousmane, whose activism had declined in the course of Tandja’s putsch, gained 8.3%, and the other candidates still less. In the parliamentary polls, the PNDS won a clear 34 seats (out of 113), doubling the number of its MPs in the National Assembly, followed by the MNSD and the new Moden of Hama Amadou. The CDS was practically annihilated. The remainder of the seats were shared between a couple of lesser parties.

With turnout hovering around the 50% mark, the parliamentary landscape had been thoroughly redrawn, making Hama Amadou into kingmaker. As member of the ARN coalition, he should have given his support to Seyni Oumarou, but he made another U-turn, possibly also because of the negative reaction by Moden members to the alliance with the MNSD. On 9 February, the Moden leader declared his support for Mahamane Issoufou in the presidential run-off, thus creating – together with three lesser parties – a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly (78 seats). In August, the PNDS-led majority was boosted to 84, when some minor parties agreed to join what was now called the ‘Mouvance pour la Renaissance du Niger’.

In the presidential run-off on 12 March, Issoufou took 57.9% of the votes and Seyni Oumarou 42.1%. Turnout was 48%. On 16 March, Oumarou conceded defeat, opening the way for Issoufou’s accession to the highest office. Nicknamed ‘Zaki’ (lion), the 59-year-old mining engineer had twice been runner-up. This experience had had a sobering effect on a man known not only for his leftist convictions (he was active in the Socialist International and is a friend of fellow ‘eternal’ opposition leader-turned president, Alpha Condé of Guinea) but also for his fierce temper. It was essentially Tandja’s ill-judged attempt to hang on to the presidency that paved the way for his success. Issoufou is also one of the few leading politicians without a military background. With the new president sworn in on 7 April, the textbook transition begun with the ‘republican’ coup of junta leader Salou Djibo the previous year came to an end.

Issoufou appointed Brigi Rafini, a technocrat and Tuareg from the northern town of Iferouâne, as prime minister – an appointment calculated to appease Niger’s chronically malcontent Tuareg community, while harmlesss for Issoufou as Rafini was not part of his inner circle. Foreign affairs went to Bazoum Mohamed, a member of that inner group; Foumakoye Gado, also a presidential confidant, got the important ministry of energy and mining; and Issoufou’s ally, Karidjo Mahamadou, became minister of defence. Marou Amadou, a human rights campaigner prominent in the struggle against Tandja, became minister of justice. The cabinet included five women. In a minor reshuffle on 12 September, intended to accommodate the disappointments of the government’s Moden partner about their ministerial posts, mining was made into a separate ministry, together with industrial development, and awarded to Hamidou Tchiana, an ally of Hama Amadou. The Moden leader himself had been elected chair of the National Assembly on 19 April, taking over from Mahamane Ousmane. In a break with the past, President Issoufou invited Seyni Oumarou to join a government of national unity, but the MNSD leader declined.

The happy end to the crisis of the previous years went hand in hand with an ambitious government programme. Issoufou pledged to work for strong republican institutions and vast investment in agriculture, irrigation, water supply and livestock improvement (the right to education, drinking water and an adequate diet was inscribed in the constitution). The entire five-year development plan would require funds to the tune of € 9 bn, to be supplied by fiscal revenues and development aid and to be undergirded by a projected growth rate of 7%. The agricultural part of Issoufou’s plans would be allocated a prospective € 1.8 bn.

In May, the National Assembly passed a bill granting amnesty to the former junta – a sine qua non for a smooth beginning of the ‘7th Republic’. The armed forces had already, on 7 March, signed a republican pact with political parties, the media and civil society groups, vowing to respect the new constitution. In reference to the previous two years, the pact noted that Niger was sick and its consciousness needed to be enhanced with regard to respect for democratic and constitutional principles. However, if the army came out of the transition with its republican reputation reinforced, this did not apply to all sections of the military, for many officers still harboured sympathy for Tandja. On 22 July, several officers were detained on suspicion of plotting to kill the new president. They were said to have conceived a coup plan for 16 July, when Issoufou would be assassinated. Those arrested included a major and a lieutenant, a member of the presidential guard and a captain formerly responsible for the security of Salou Djibo. On 9 September, Colonel Abdoulaye Badié, Salou Djibo’s former secretary who had already been detained over similar rumours in October 2010, was re-arrested and another top military man was arrested two days later. It was alleged that the rebellious military were angered by Issoufou’s efforts to stamp out corruption, which had led to several dismissals. However, this could hardly be expected to be the end of the matter, as the prospective start of oil production would make the country less dependent on foreign aid and thus less susceptible to the corrective pressure of donors.

On 7 January, a kidnapping incident sent shockwaves through Niger’s Western community. Members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) snatched two young Frenchmen from a restaurant in the capital Niamey, 700 m. from the presidential palace. This blatant act was clearly intended to intimidate Niger’s Western partners, and the victims – one an NGO worker about to marry a Nigérien girl, the other his friend who had come over for the wedding – were taken towards the border with Mali. The French government, in close consultation with the Niger and Mali authorities, dispatched helicopters from a base in Ouagadougou, while Nigérien gendarmerie pursued the kidnappers on land. One party of gendarmes fell victim to an AQIM ambush (with four taken prisoner), but French special forces caught up with the kidnappers, reportedly just across the border in Mali. Violent clashes took place in which two French military, including one of the helicopter pilots, were wounded. Eight people were killed: four kidnappers, three Nigérien gendarmes and the two hostages, one of whom was executed by the AQIM men, and the other caught in the cross-fire (his body was later found badly burned).

If the swift response was the proper answer to the AQIM challenge, the incident did not fail to increase concern over security. US Peace Corps volunteers were withdrawn, and Niamey’s security industry received a new boost. Issoufou’s government vowed to fight AQIM and trans-border crime. In late February, three hostages who had been kidnapped from the uranium town of Arlit in September 2010 were released from an AQIM hide-out in Mali: one Togolese, a Malagasy and a French woman sick with cancer; this left four Frenchmen from Arlit in AQIM hands. On 23 March, AQIM demanded a € 90 m ransom. It was unknown whether money had been paid for the freed hostages. In June, 80 km north of Arlit, Niger soldiers clashed with men coming from Libya who were alleged to be on their way to an AQIM hide-out. Their vehicles were carrying explosives and detonators of Czech manufacture. One soldier and one militant were killed and six soldiers wounded. As a result of the crisis in Libya, the armed forces were put on maximum alert. In September, another clash took place in the Agadez region, in which three AQIM militants were killed and arms were recovered, along with 50 young men who were being recruited, either forcibly or with the promise of cash. In comparison, the threat posed by ordinary Tuareg rebels was insignificant. In July, members of former rebel forces surrendered weapons, vehicles and ammunition. Prime Minister Rafini, himself a Tuareg, appealed for the loyalty of his people. Security in the border region with Mali continued to be problematic. In April, 24 pastoralists were killed and several wounded in a cattle camp when armed men from Mali staged an attack.

Issoufou seemed determined to continue the clean-up started by the junta in the wake of Tandja’s overthrow. A ‘cour des comptes’, established in 2010, produced a damning report in March about financial irregularities between 1996 and 2009, most of them involving false or inflated procurement invoices. A total of 3,000 people had by now come under scrutiny, and reported embezzlements totalled CFAfr 77 bn. The Ibrahim Index of African governance rated Niger’s performance as very poor (ranking 39th out of 53 countries and in sixth place among the eight-member UEMOA). One of Tandja’s sons, arrested in 2010, still awaited trial, together with a former mining minister, for corruption involving mining licences.

On 16 January, former president Tandja was moved from house arrest to a state prison, having been charged with financial malfeasance (the previous year the ECOWAS court of justice had ruled his detention without charge illegal). However, in May, an appeals court dismissed all charges, arguing that it was constitutionally impossible to try a head of state after he had left office. Although this provided an unsatisfactory conclusion to the clean-up campaign, the law had been designed in this way to prevent politically motivated cases against former leaders. Tandja left jail on 10 May. However, an audience granted by Issoufou to Seyni Oumarou on 12 May was said to mark the end of Tandja’s long-standing influence.

The insurrection and regime change taking place in Libya created a huge refugee crisis. By April, almost 60,000 sub-Saharan Africans had made their dangerous way across the desert and found themselves in overstretched camps. Most having worked for years in menial jobs in Libya, they found themselves the target of racist and revenge attacks by rebel militias, being accused of connivance with Kadhafi’s regime – West African Tuareg fighters had been paid huge sums of money to defend the maverick leader against the rebels. Many Nigériens struggled to receive family members while having to cope with a drop in remittances. By the summer, some 210,000 Nigériens were said to have returned home.

Although the 2010 Human Development Index ranked Niger as the third poorest country in the world (two places higher than in 2009), social unrest was limited. On 1 August, police broke up demonstrations in the capital where people were protesting against blackouts due to disruptions in the electricity supplies from Nigeria (the source of 80% of the country’s power). Several people were wounded and some were arrested. Top police officials were sacked in the wake of clashes between police and demonstrators in Niger’s second city, Zinder, on 6–7 December.

Foreign Affairs

With the return to civilian rule, the country’s membership rights in ECOWAS and the AU were restored. At the end of May, Issoufou participated in the Africa outreach session at the G8 summit in Deauville, which signalled continuing close relations with France. Together with three other sub-Saharan heads of state, Issoufou visited the White House on 29 July (a particularly gratifying experience for a politician who had been so long in the wilderness).

Relations with France and the US were expected to remain dominated by concerns over security. Cooperation in this area also included West African countries, as well as Algeria. On 20 May, a get-together began in Bamako, involving Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Algeria, to discuss terrorism and trans-border crime. While Mali had called for a regional approach and the training of tens of thousands of troops to tackle the AQIM challenge, Algeria remained lukewarm, despite the fallout of the Libyan crisis (it had consistently opposed the involvement of France in this issue). Nevertheless, Mali and Niger vowed to strengthen their cooperation. This pattern repeated itself on 7–8 September at a meeting in Algiers. The Algerians claimed that Algeria and its West African partners needed to develop their own security capabilities and that foreign troops should be kept out, while Niger warned that the region had been turned into a powder keg. Relations with Nigeria were reinforced, strengthening cooperation to counter the threat of terrorism and banditry (AQIM in Niger were reported to have had contacts with the Boko Haram group in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri). On 9 August, the two countries held talks on the issue and vowed to strengthen border patrols.

The government had to tread cautiously with regard to the deteriorating crisis in Libya. In July, Issoufou warned against arms proliferation and the risk of fundamentalists taking power in Tripoli. While other West African states were distancing themselves from Kadhafi or had already recognised the rebel-dominated transitional government, Issoufou stressed Niger’s neutrality. On 6 September, as the Libyan regime was falling apart, more than 30 members of Kadhafi’s inner circle made their way to Niger, together with one of Kadhafi’s sons, Saadi, and the government felt compelled to host them on humanitarian grounds. Niger’s stance was complicated by: the fact that the Kadhafi regime had made substantial gifts to the country; the impossibility of patrolling the common border; the violent treatment of Niger migrant workers by anti-Kadhafi forces; and the fallout of the regime change for security and the Tuareg community. Aghaly Alambo, former leader of the rebel ‘Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice’, had taken up residence in Tripoli after he had made his peace with the Tandja government (brokered by Kadhafi). Upon the latter’s fall he travelled back to Niger, together with Libyans loyal to the old regime. Things became more sensitive when the US State Department called on Niger to arrest those senior figures who might become the target of international prosecution, and Libya’s rebel forces threatened action if Niger helped Kadhafi himself to escape. While Issoufou promised full cooperation with the ICC, to which Niger is a signatory, the government was much relieved when it turned out that the Libyan leader had remained in his country to meet his maker. Earlier, on 27 August, Issoufou recognised Libya’s transitional government, ahead of AU policy on this point, obviously to protect Niger’s interests.

Socioeconomic Developments

Early in the year, there was a temporary let-up in the previous year’s food shortages, themselves caused by the disappointing 2009 harvests. However, rainfall, though it improved in July and August, proved erratic and the autumn harvests were catastrophic, auguring badly for the situation in 2012. Cereal prices began to rise after the harvest, which is unusual, and in December the UN Emergency Response Fund said it would allocate $ 6 m to help people cope with food shortages. By then some 750,000 people in various parts of the country were already food insecure, especially as they had not yet recovered from the previous year’s difficulties. The 2010 harvest, better than in 2009, had not fully eradicated malnutrition, and the overall 2011 harvest was 11% lower than the average of the five preceding years. UNICEF reported on 21 July that more than 15% of children were suffering from acute malnutrition. The civilian government, like the preceding junta, was open about the country’s problems (in contrast to the Tandja years). In May, it put the number of people facing severe food shortages at 1.2 m (this was before the autumn harvest!), with another 1.4 m suffering moderate shortages.

Issoufou called for international help. His € 1.8 bn agricultural programme aimed to increase production by 7.4% annually, but this target was unlikely to be met in 2011. Government revenue was prioritised to the agricultural and livestock sectors (besides education), which together accounted for nearly 85% of the work force and 40% of GDP. On 24 August, the government launched an irrigation pilot project worth CFAfr 10 bn aimed at the production of 1 m tonnes of various types of food crops (the Kandadji dam on the River Niger was still under construction). The ADF provided a $ 33.8 m grant to finance irrigation projects in the country’s central-eastern regions.

Meanwhile, numerous people were leaving for the cities, with urban residents hard pressed to assist rural relatives – the refugees coming from Libya did not ease the situation. The capital alone had witnessed a population growth of 6% annually for the five preceding years. Housing projects during the Tandja years had hardly taken off, but the new civilian government committed itself to constructing 1,000 social housing units annually in the north-west of the city during the next five years.

Much-needed foreign aid began to flow again. At the beginning of the year, the ‘Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement’ granted a loan of CFAfr 22 bn for road construction and irrigation projects (and later lent $ 107 m for energy programmes). The OPEC Fund for International Development gave loans totalling more than $ 18 m for road upgrading and rural development. China gave a grant for the extension of the second bridge across the River Niger in the capital. An IDA loan of $ 52 m was to help overcome institutional bottlenecks hindering road maintenance and rural development, among other things. The EU released € 25 m in budget support in July, the first tranche since the accession of Issoufou to the presidency and marking the full resumption of ties. If all went well, € 450 m worth of European aid would be disbursed in the next five years.

Towards year’s end, the IMF awarded an ECF facility to the tune of $ 123 m, intended to help in absorbing the fall in remittances and the disappointing harvest. The World Bank provided assistance for a social safety net for vulnerable households that should cover 1 m people over five years by way of regular transfers of small amounts of money paid out to women. Health and water were also targeted in the programme, which totalled $ 280 m. In May, the government reduced the national budget by 6.6% to cope with delays in aid transfers and various administrative problems. While the overall budget declined, at some CFAfr 65.9 bn, it was expected that the government would still aim to increase spending on food security and the military – the latter in order to confront the country’s growing security threats. The 2010 growth figure according to the national statistical agency appeared higher than first expected (7.5% as against ca. 3%). By contrast, optimistic figures for 2011 were later toned down to 3.8% as a result of the catastrophic harvest.

The start of Chinese uranium mining at Teguidan Tessoumt (Azélik) at the end of 2010 was followed by the official opening on 17 March. Salou Djibo had already received the vice-president of the China National Nuclear Corporation, which together with a South Korean firm controls two-thirds of the mine’s capital (and Niger a blocking one-third). A third of the mine’s expected yearly 700 tonnes production (out of a national total of 3,000 tonnes) would be to the benefit of the national budget. Representing around half of the country’s exports, the importance of the yellow cake was expected to grow further, despite the nuclear disaster in Japan. Australian, Canadian and Indian firms remained active in exploration. French Areva, which had security for its personnel reinforced after the kidnappings that had taken place in 2010, remained dominant. According to the World Nuclear Association, Niger’s uranium production increased in 2010 by 29.4% to 4,198 tonnes, becoming the world’s number five.

Oil production also began. Extraction from the Agadem block near the Chadian border started in September. Chinese construction of the 460-km pipeline connecting the block to a refinery in Zinder was also completed. With oil production coming on stream in 2012, growth could rise to 14%, boosting domestic revenue. The refinery could produce 20,000 b/d, destined for the domestic market to ease local consumption (7,000 b/d), although transportation might become a problem. In any case, it could cut the country’s import bill. In the meantime, the Chinese would construct another pipeline, probably to link up with the Chadian-Cameroonian one, for the transportation of their 60% share of the crude. Daily total production could grow to 100,000 barrels. However, disagreement arose over the costs of the refinery, which was officially opened on 28 November but whose revenue could possibly not be enough to cover the government’s share in its capital outlay, advanced by the Chinese. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) demanded a higher share of Agadem’s output and claimed that the deposed Tandja had agreed to this. Typically for the latter’s opaque dealings with Chinese firms, the new minister of finance disputed the existence of such an agreement. NGOs asked the government to review the CNPC contract. On 2 March, Niger was declared compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The new constitution reserves 15% of revenues in this field for the communities where mining or production takes place.