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Short History Of Niger and Culture
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Considerable evidence indicates that about 600,000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara of northern Niger. Long before the arrival of French influence and control in the area, Niger was an important economic crossroads, and the empires of Songhai, Mali, Gao, Kanem, and Bornu, as well as a number of Hausa states, claimed control over portions of the area.
During recent centuries, the nomadic Tuareg formed large confederations, pushed southward, and, siding with various Hausa states, clashed with the Fulani Empire of Sokoto, which had gained control of much of the Hausa territory in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, contact with the West began when the first European explorers--notably Mungo Park (British) and Heinrich Barth (German)--explored the area searching for the mouth of the Niger River. Although French efforts at pacification began before 1900, dissident ethnic groups, especially the desert Tuareg, were not subdued until 1922, when Niger became a French colony.
In April 1974, the army, which is prone to intervening in Niger's politics, staged a military coup under Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Seyni Kountché. A series of failed coups followed when Kountché attempted to civilianise the government. By 1983 however, the legislative Council of Ministers was entirely composed of civilians, under Prime Minister Oumarou Maname. Kountché died in 1987, to be replaced by his staunch ally, Ali Seibou, who consolidated his position during the late 1980s. Seibou established the Mouvement Nationale pour une Société de Développement (MNSD), which became the sole legitimate political party.
In the early 1990s, the government came under internal and external pressure to introduce democratic government. After some initial uncertainty and opposition from Seibou, the government chose to follow the regional trend and installed an interim administration, prior to multi-party elections and the introduction of a new constitution.
The National Assembly poll, held on 14 February 1993, saw a victory for the six-party coalition, the Alliance des Forces de Changement (AFC), which accumulated 50 of the 83 seats over the MNSD. The MNSD was similarly thwarted in the presidential election, held in two rounds during February and March 1993, which was won by Mahamane Ousmane, a leading member of the AFC coalition. Apart from the economy, the new government's main problem was the Tuareg rebellion. Since 1990, there had been a series of clashes between security forces and guerrillas belonging to the nomadic Tuareg people. The Tuareg had left Niger to escape the chronic Sahel drought of the 1980s. A series of agreements were brokered, providing for Tuareg land rights and defined future relations between the Tuareg and central government. Despite occasional problems, the agreement has held.
Following the January 1995 legislative elections, MNSD recovered control of the national assembly and the government under ex-World Bank official Amadou Aboubacar Cissé. Over the next 12 months, friction between the Cissé government and President Ousmane steadily worsened until, exactly one year later, the military stepped in once again. Army chief of staff Colonel Ibrahim Bare Mainassara took control of the country. Under strong external pressure, particularly from Niger's main Western financial backers, the military moved quickly to restore a veneer of civilian government.
In April 1999, Mainassara was killed by his own head of security, after an escalating series of disputes with his erstwhile military colleagues. The uncertain political situation which followed was resolved with the holding of simultaneous presidential and legislative elections in November that year. The MNSD, the country's historic ruling party, recovered control of both the presidency – in the person of Mamadou Tandja – and the national assembly, where it forms the government with Hana Amadou as premier.
In 2002, the government faced a series of mutinies by soldiers demanding better pay and conditions; these were put down by other units loyal to the government. The following year, the United States and Britain claimed that Niger had sold uranium ore to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the course of his efforts to build nuclear weapons. The claim was subsequently proven to have been based on forged documents but the case drew unwelcome attention to Niger and its dependence on sales of the ore.
