Mohammedou Tandia is considered Niger's first two-term democratically elected leader (1999–2009), though some Nigeriens are ready to place him on trial for treason (Clottey 2010). The reasons for this are numerous, although roots of the complexity are evident in the voting record and political events leading up to February 2010. The first election in 1999 reported him receiving 66.5% of the vote, with 99.4% eligible voter turnout (Kuenzi and Lambright 2007). The Independent National Electoral Commission oversaw the next election, given the vocal criticism of the 1999 election. President Tandia won the 2004 election with 65.5% of the votes, but voter turnout was only 45% (IRIN 2004). By December 2009, Tandia was expected to step down from power, but six months earlier he dissolved parliament and dismissed the courts while creating a referendum that allowed his tenure to continue until 2012 (Author correspondence, 2009, Massalatchi 2009). United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Tandia's abuse of executive power, but he proceeded with a rushed and heavily boycotted December election, which he won (Bailey 2010). On 18 February 2010 a group of soldiers, under the leadership of Salou Djibo and calling themselves the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, seized power from Tandia (RFI 2010). Ban Ki-moon also came out against the recent coup d'état (Bailey 2010), which leaves those interested to contemplate Niger's political future.
Niger has a tumultuous political record since gaining independence from France 50 years ago. On the surface it appears that problems stem from self-contained rivalries between different ethnic groups. Since 3 August 1960, the one-third Sahelian and two-thirds Saharan nation has experienced dictatorship, human rights abuses, corruption, violence and nepotism. The central government fought off two rebellions in its northern territory, various protests and strikes from youth organisations in the major cities, and two large famines in the 1970s and 1980s along with recent food crises in 2005 and 2010. It has witnessed four successful coups d'état during 1974, 1996, 1999 and 2010; one failed attempt in 1983; one aborted plot in 1998; and two alleged plots in 1975 and 1976 (Marshall 2004, RFI 2010). A focus only on national-level politics, however, omits the larger geopolitical view of Niger in the global arena.
As people who are cognisant of Niger's political situation debate the direction the country will take, one fact remains clear: Niger remains an unknown to many people. Most would be hard pressed to find it on a map. Some confuse Niger for Nigeria, the more populous neighbour on its southern border. Few multinational institutions are on the ground, with the exception of UN and aid organisations. Panels for multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental agencies are common sights at round points and street corners of Niamey's Plateau and Issabery neighbourhoods. On average, 10% of Niger's annual revenue is aid assistance and this figure has been increasing in recent years (Altwegg-Boussac 2006, Moreira and Bayraktar 2008). Regionally its biggest trading partner is Nigeria, with grains and livestock flowing out and electricity and consumable goods flowing in (Tall 2004).
On the other hand, Niger is well known in the geopolitical community for its main natural resource – uranium. It accounts for 70% of Niger's revenues and is mined in the North near the twin towns of Arlit and Akokan (Chamaret et al. 2007). It is the world's fifth largest uranium producer, and is likely to rise in position when a new mine in Imouraren opens in 2013 (Capus et al. 2004). In 2003, President George Bush, Jr. and Prime Minister Tony Blair used Niger's uranium and obscurity as a political chip to convince the world that Saddam Hussein was purchasing uranium ore to develop weapons of mass destruction (Duffy and Carney 2003) – a completely disingenuous charge, to say the least. Still, Niger was in 2003 – and is today – unknown territory.
French scientists found Niger's rich uranium reserves in the 1950s, between the Aïr Mountains and Tamesna pastures that are customarily occupied and used by Tuareg, Arab and Peulh herders (Poitou 1982, Bernus 1999). These communities were never approached regarding mining development but their land was seized through eminent domain (Bourgeot 1989). During decolonisation, France influenced the election of a pro-French leader named Hamani Diori and secured for their Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) 83% control and shares of the uranium mine, leaving 17% to the Nigerien government. Production started in 1971, though Hamani was deposed shortly after for a variety of reasons, including the poor returns from uranium (Salifou 2008). Under Seyni Kountché, the second Nigerien president, uranium revenues for the state were renegotiated to 35%, France's CEA transferred its 65% share to Compagnie générale des matières nucléaires, or COGEMA, which by 2001 became part of Areva, a larger multinational energy corporation (Capus et al. 2004). COGEMA and Areva hold a two-thirds monopoly over the production, transport, and processing of Niger's uranium for over 30 years (Chamaret et al. 2007).
Thirty-plus years of uranium exploitation has its consequences on the physical and human environment. Local groups were the first to notice the disappearance of flora and fauna (Poitou 1982). Explosions, drilling and the constant disturbance of earth materials in open-pit mines diffuse radioactive dust contaminating neighbouring areas (Dixon 2010). The Commission de recherche et d'information indépendantes sur la radioactivité (CRIIRAD), a French watchdog group, has monitored mining practices over the past several years (Chareyron 2005, CRIIRAD 2005). Recently in partnership with Greenpeace International, CRIIRAD collected soil samples and scrap metal from Arlit and Akokan, and found radioactive contamination exceeding 100 times the accepted limit set by the World Health Organization. Groundwater samples also tested by CRIIRAD revealed dangerous levels of radon, nitrates, ammonia and molybdenum (Dixon 2010). The contaminated soil and groundwater use are likely to create larger health problems for the inhabitants of the twin mining towns: a social cost that local communities will shoulder the brunt of, but the Nigerien government and Areva in all likelihood will not.
Areva has secured majority control and revenues of the future Imouraren site (Michelson and Massalatchi 2009), but in the last six years other corporations have moved into the Tamesna and Aïr Regions. The Tandia regime parcelled out large new concessions to Chinese, American, Australian, Canadian and Indian energy companies for mineral exploration (Bouhlel-Hardy et al. 2008). Once again these actions were done without the consent of, participation in, or compensation to the various pastoral groups living and dependent on the natural resources in the North (Guichaoua 2009). If these concessions bear fruit as these various multinationals expect, further development will impinge, block and further dispossess Nigerien pastoral groups, in addition to Malian and Algerian herders who seasonally visit to utilise pasture and wells in the Tamesna.
The situation of remote communities in northern Niger affected by outside interference does not end here. Niger's anonymity is not a one-way tactic played only by Western foreign policy makers when convenient. Niamey touts the difficulties in monitoring its vast and porous northern and eastern borders and the threat of Al-Qaeda Maghreb's presence in the Sahara. It does this to attract money and military aid from the United States and European Union in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) (Glickman 2003, Keenan 2004, 2007, Lecocq and Schrijver 2007). With the 3300 km of borders Niger shares with Mali, Algeria, Libya and Chad, coupled with extremist groups just across the border in Nigeria, American and European tacticians see cause for alarm (Ellis 2004, Ousmane 2004). The Nigerien government joined the GWOT in 2003 and continues to receive training and assistance from Western militaries.
The government of Niger, like many of its contemporaries in the third world, uses the military training, equipment and funding to subjugate their own minority groups and political rivals. The Tandia regime suppressed an uprising in the Aïr Region in 2004/5 and fought a dirty little war against a larger collective resistance called the Mouvement des nigériens pour la justice (MNJ) from 2007 to 2009 (Keenan 2008, Guichaoua 2009). The MNJ consists primarily of the Tuareg, the major ethnic group displaced and dispossessed through uranium mining over the past 40 years. Tandia needed GWOT assistance to protect the mining operations and uranium convoys coming from Arlit and Akokan. Infuriated with the lack of local development and denial of local participation in the management of this resource, the MNJ attacked military installations and mining operations in 2007 and 2008, (Guichaoua 2009). Propaganda coming from Niamey labels the rebels as bandits, thugs and illicit drug traders with close ties to terrorist organisations in the Sahara (Lecocq and Schrijver 2007).
The threat of Al Qaeda Maghreb, a small group of Algerian extremists who seek out Western targets in the Sahara, gives Niger the needed political leverage to appropriate GWOT assistance, although people who work and live in the Sahara are aware this group is more hype than a threat (Keenan 2007, Lecocq and Schrijver 2007). Nevertheless Niger ascended to greater geopolitical scrutiny when a UN envoy was abducted in late 2008. The Fowler mission originally stated that it came to survey a gold mine 45 km from Niamey. Later it was revealed that they came for peace talks between the NMJ and Tandia regime, but were kidnapped after visiting the mine (Sahara Focus 2009a). Initially the Tandia government blamed the MNJ for the abduction but, two months after the abduction, Al Qaeda Maghreb claimed responsibility and forwarded its demand: the release of a radical cleric imprisoned in the United Kingdom by the name of Abu Qatada. Fowler, his driver, and three tourists seized at a music festival on the Mali–Niger border were released in late April 2009 (Sahara Focus 2009b). Tragically, a fourth named Edwin Dyer, from England, was killed for non-compliance with this demand. Unfortunate incidents like these are often used to legitimise counterterrorism operations in the Sahara and Sahel. The success rate of such operations are highly speculative however and the coercion of local populations in the name of ‘suppressing terrorists’ a growing concern.
So far, the Tuareg and neighbouring Arab populations in northern Niger have little allegiance to Al Qaeda Maghreb. At worst, a few desperate or unscrupulous individuals on rare occasions abduct foreign workers and tourists to sell to extremist groups. Overall the Tuareg and Arab groups that inhabit the Sahara want as little negative press as possible. They are the tour guides, the clandestine traders, and the everyday people driving trucks and their animals from one oasis or well to another (Lecocq and Schrijver 2007). Though not exclusively of Tandia's making, his policies exacerbated the tensions in the North. His administration neglected development in the Aïr Region and has expanded mineral exploration in the Tamesna. When protest was articulated his administration used GWOT resources to suppress all forms of resistance, a tactic Mali took with its pastoral groups around Tin Zaouaten, and that the Algerian government used against its political rivals (Keenan 2008). How long will it take before the MNJ and other pastoral groups connect the geopolitical dots and resent the West for providing military support to the central government? They already know, but for some reason have kept their grievances internal. Tandia brought the Tuareg rebels to a stalemate by late 2008 but squandered GWOT assistance and uranium revenues on the war in the North (Guichaoua 2009). This created a large atmosphere of criticism by other groups in the South for neglecting development (Massalatchi 2009). Tandia overplayed his ‘strongman’ approach with the MNJ Rebellion and needed more time than was left in his second term to implement projects. He dissolved legislative and judicial branches of government and conducted a contentious referendum that many viewed as rigged (RFI 2010). Protests against Tandia's extension of power were large in the cities of Niamey, Dosso, Maradi and Zinder during the summer of 2009. The coup that came eight months later was not democratic. Disenchanted with Mohammedou Tandia's rule, it was a plot of junior military officers (RFI 2010). The coup was, however, expected and welcomed by a fair number of Nigeriens.
The new leadership has made a few promising steps since seizing power in February. First, they are moving toward constitutional reforms and a national election by the end of 2010 (Vidjingninou 2010). They sacked the ministers of the gold and uranium mines and will audit all concessions granted during the Tandia presidency (Reuters 2010). Their approach to the latest food crisis also shows promise in the Djibo government by reporting food vulnerability more accurately than the Tandia regime ever did (IRIN 2010). But whether these short-term political actions bear fruit or become empty rhetoric manipulated by a new government remains to be seen. Given the international reaction to the coup the path will likely be difficult if the junta consolidates power. Yet even a democracy will have its challenges in avoiding the geopolitical trap that Mohammedou Tandia fell into.
Niger's exploitation of natural resources will be crucial, but to do so at the expense of local peoples' participation, compensation and integration into national development is counterproductive. GWOT has the potential to extinguish terrorism, curb clandestine activities and human trafficking but has also been used inappropriately in the past five years to suppress local communities and political criticism. A new Nigerien government has the opportunity to reconcile long-standing grievances with its minorities like the Tuareg but could also neglect through ignorance or callousness their remote constituents, small in number. The actions multinational corporations, international organisations, and other international players take with Niger have in the past and will in the future influence its policies and programmes. Niamey is not a puppet of the West, but to ignore the constraints and challenges that powerful agents place on the Sahelian nation in the geopolitical arena ignores the difficulties that its leadership has navigated through in the past 50 years. Niger is not alone in this quagmire. So are other resource-rich, chronically impoverished nations.
Note on contributor
Franklin Charles Graham IV is a former Peace Corps volunteer from Mauritania, West Africa. Regarding his PhD studies, he received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant to study pastoral food security and livelihoods in eastern Mali and northern Niger.