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Travel to Niger — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorNiger
| Republic of Niger National
name: République du Niger President: Tandja Mamadou (1999) Prime Minister: Seyni Oumarou
(2007)
Current government officials
Land area: 489,072 sq mi (1,266,699 sq
km); total area: 489,189 sq mi (1,267,000 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 13,272,679 (growth
rate: 2.8%); birth rate: 49.6/1000; infant mortality rate: 115.4/1000;
life expectancy: 44.2; density per sq km: 10
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Niamey, 748,600 Other large cities: Zinder, 202,300;
Maradi, 189,000 Monetary unit: CFA
Franc
Languages:
French (official), Hausa, Djerma
Ethnicity/race:
Hausa 56%, Djerma 22%, Fula 8.5%, Tuareg 8%,
Beri Beri (Kanouri) 4.3%, Arab, Toubou, and Gourmantche 1.2%, about
1,200 French expatriates
Religions:
Islam 80%, indigenous beliefs and Christian
20%
National Holiday:
Republic Day, December 18 Literacy rate: 28.7% (2005 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$8.902 billion; per capita $700. Real growth rate: 3.2%.
Inflation: 0.1%. Unemployment: n.a. Arable land:
11%. Agriculture: cowpeas, cotton, peanuts, millet,
sorghum, cassava (tapioca), rice; cattle, sheep, goats, camels,
donkeys, horses, poultry. Labor force: 70,000 receive regular
wages or salaries (2002 est.); agriculture 90%, industry and commerce
6%, government 4%. Industries: uranium mining, cement, brick,
soap, textiles, food processing, chemicals, slaughterhouses.
Natural resources: uranium, coal, iron ore, tin, phosphates,
gold, petroleum. Exports: $428 million f.o.b. (2006): uranium
ore, livestock, cowpeas, onions. Imports: $800 million f.o.b.
(2006): foodstuffs, machinery, vehicles and parts, petroleum, cereals.
Major trading partners: France, Nigeria, Russia, U.S., French
Polynesia, Côte d'Ivoire, China (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 24,000 (2005); mobile cellular: 323,900 (2005). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 5, FM 6, shortwave 4 (2001). Radios:
680,000 (1997). Television broadcast stations: 5 (2007).
Televisions: 125,000 (1997). Internet Service Providers
(ISPs): 200 (2007). Internet users: 40,000 (2006). Transportation: Railways: 0 km. Highways:
total: 14,565 km; paved: 3,641 km; unpaved: 10,924 km (2004).
Waterways: the Niger is navigable 300 km from Niamey to Gaya on
the Benin frontier from mid-December through March. Ports and
harbors: none. Airports: 28 (2007). International disputes: Libya claims about
25,000 sq km in a currently dormant dispute; much of Benin-Niger
boundary, including tripoint with Nigeria, remains undemarcated but
states accept 2001 arbitration over disputed Niger River islands; Lake
Chad Commission continues to urge signatories Cameroon, Chad, Niger,
and Nigeria to ratify delimitation treaty over the lake region, which
remains the site of armed clashes among local populations and
militias.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Niger, in West Africa's Sahara region, is
four-fifths the size of Alaska. It is surrounded by Mali, Algeria, Libya,
Chad, Nigeria, Benin, and Burkina Faso. The Niger River in the southwest
flows through the country's only fertile area. Elsewhere the land is
semiarid.
Government
Republic, emerging from military rule.
History
The nomadic Tuaregs were the first inhabitants
in the Sahara region. The Hausa (14th century), Zerma (17th century),
Gobir (18th century), and Fulani (19th century) also established
themselves in the region now called Niger.
Niger was incorporated into French West Africa
in 1896. There were frequent rebellions, but when order was restored in
1922, the French made the area a colony. In 1958, the voters approved the
French constitution and voted to make the territory an autonomous republic
within the French Community. The republic adopted a constitution in 1959
but the next year withdrew from the Community, proclaiming its
independence.
During the 1970s, the country's economy
flourished from uranium production, but when uranium prices fell in the
1980s, its brief period of prosperity ended. The drought of
1968–1975 devastated the country. An estimated 2 million people were
starving in Niger, but 200,000 tons of imported food, half U.S.-supplied,
substantially ended famine conditions.
The 1974 army coup ousted President Hamani
Diori, who had held office since 1960. The new president, Lt. Col. Seyni
Kountché, chief of staff of the army, installed a 12-man military
government. A predominantly civilian government was formed by
Kountché in 1976.
In 1993, the country's first multiparty election
resulted in the presidency of Ousmane Mahamane, who was then deposed in a
Jan. 1996 coup. In July, the military leader of the coup, Ibrahim
Baré Maïnassara, was declared president in a rigged election.
Considered a corrupt and ineffectual president, Maïnassara was
assassinated in April 1999 by his own guards. The National Reconciliation
Council, responsible for the coup, kept its promise and held democratic
elections; in Nov. 1999, Tandja Mamadou was elected president. As a
result, foreign aid, primarily from France, was restored.
The nomadic Tuaregs, of Berber and Arab descent,
have a fiercely insular culture and share little affinity with the black
African majority of Niger. Conflict between the Tuaregs and the other
tribes of Niger first surfaced in the early 20th century. Cease-fires
between the government and various Tuareg rebel groups went into effect in
1995 and 1997. The impoverished Tuaregs have received little of the
economic aid they were promised, which is not surprising given Niger's
political instability and desperate poverty.
Niger found itself a pawn in the war against
Iraq when both the U.S. and Britain claimed that Iraq sought to buy
uranium from Niger, citing this as evidence that Saddam Hussein was
reconstituting his country's nuclear weapons program. While the U.S.
evidence for the Iraq-Niger uranium connection was exposed as a forgery,
Britain's Butler report, released in July 2004, concluded the claim was
“credible,” based on separate evidence. But the final report
of the Iraqi Survey Group in Sept. 2004—the U.S. report assessing
evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction—concluded that the
“ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from
abroad after 1991.”
Under pressure, Niger criminalized slavery in
2003, but about 43,000 people are still thought to be held as slaves. In
March 2005, a public ceremony freeing 7,000 slaves was planned, but at the
last minute the government reversed itself, denying that slavery existed
in the country.
In 2005, Niger faced its worst locust
infestation in 15 years as well as a severe drought. The UN reported that
3.6 million citizens were suffering from malnutrition. President Tandja,
however, claimed the food crisis was propaganda invented by the country's
political opposition.
Prime Minister Hama Amadou resigned in June
2007, after a no-confidence vote against his government passed in
parliament. Members of his government are under investigation for
allegedly embezzling funds from the education ministry. Former trade
minister Seyni Oumarou was appointed to succeed Amadou.
See also Encyclopedia: Niger.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Niger
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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