At General Seyni Kountche Stadium in the Nigerian capital, Niamey, and amidst a large popular presence, members of the National Council for the Protection of the State commemorated the first anniversary of the July 26, 2023 coup that overthrew elected President Mohamed Bazoum.
Among the members of the military council and thousands of supporters, the head of state, General Abderrahmane Tiani, stood out and gave a speech in which he said that “the plundering of the country’s wealth, among many other things, has forced the army to assume responsibility, and that the priority in work has become to strengthen economic sovereignty by supporting local development and reducing dependence on foreign parties.”
Despite its uranium resources, which meet a quarter of the European Union’s nuclear energy needs, Niger is ranked sixth among the world’s 10 poorest countries, with about 44.5% of the population living in extreme poverty, according to World Bank data.
Huge wealth
Since 2012, Niger has joined the club of oil-producing countries with a production rate not exceeding 20,000 barrels per day, and in 2019 it signed a contract with the Chinese Petroleum Corporation to exploit the Agadem field in the north and produce 110,000 barrels per day, and the Chinese side was tasked with building a pipeline from the field to the coast of Benin to be a place for export.
In 2021, Niger achieved a major leap in gold production, with its exports reaching $2.7 billion, up from $160 million in 2011, making it one of the fastest growing African countries that year, recording an 11% increase.
In addition to uranium, gold and oil, Niger has a wealth of iron ore amounting to 9.2 billion tons, 1.25 billion tons of phosphate ore, and its gas reserves are estimated at 24 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas.
Data from the Ministry of Agriculture in Niger indicate that the livestock sector is one of the most important resources of the local economy for the population, as most citizens tend to raise livestock, which totals 50.5 million heads according to 2019 statistics, equivalent to 7 billion dollars, and the country produces about 5 million tons of agricultural crops annually.
Corruption and poverty
But these great riches have not been reflected in the country; nearly half of the population lives in extreme poverty due to the government’s inability to intervene in development and public services. The country ranks last in the world in the Human Development Index set by the United Nations Development Program, and before the coup of July 26, 2023, it relied on donors for 40% of its general budget.
Since its independence from France in 1960, it has been bound by economic contracts with French companies, and many intellectuals and those interested in development issues believe that these partnerships represent a plundering of the country’s resources and wealth.
Many economic reports indicate that France was the only country that extracted uranium for only 5%, in coordination and collusion with the former military rulers. After popular pressure and demonstrations organized by civil society organizations in 2014, the government’s share rose to 15%.
In a report published by the French newspaper Le Monde last January, a lot of Niger’s gold is smuggled out of the country without being registered with the Ministry of Minerals. At the beginning of this year, the authorities at Addis Ababa airport stopped a shipment of gold bullion amounting to 1,400 kilograms, or about 91 million euros, that was on its way to be smuggled.
The newspaper quoted Transparency International as saying that in 2020, actual gold exports reached 34.24 tons, while only 18.2 were reported to the Ministry of Minerals. The organization added that corrupt practices related to smuggling the country’s wealth are common among government officials.
Economic sovereignty
But the coup plotters who came to power in 2023 after ending military ties with France and the United States announced that they would move towards achieving economic sovereignty, referring to establishing local companies or moving towards non-French companies.
In his speech on July 26, marking the first anniversary of the coup, the head of the military council, General Abderrahmane Tiani, said that “the country’s wealth was being plundered by a regime that revolved around the former colonial power, and that the constant plunder of wealth and existential threats are what made the military shoulder their responsibilities and stand up to those who wanted to keep the country in a state of poverty.”
Tiani stressed that priority will be given to local companies in the mining and oil industries to enhance economic sovereignty and to activate the “local content principle” in the management of extractive industries.
Last June, the military government in Niamey withdrew the French company Orano’s license to operate the Imouraren mine, which has estimated reserves of 200,000 tons of uranium.
Orano has been operating in Niger since 1971 and still operates a mine in the Arlit region but is facing extraction problems.
At the same time, the company said in its semi-annual report that it had incurred financial losses of 133 million euros due to the crisis with France, and considered the withdrawal of its license illegal and would confront it in national and international courts.
Earlier, the head of the ruling military council said his regime would soon launch a project to build a new oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Dosso province.
In early August, the authorities launched a new concrete steel plant, costing about $2.9 million, operated by the national company Niger Steel. On the occasion of its inauguration, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Osman Saidou, said that this is the beginning of the trend towards developing the manufacturing industries to which the transitional government has committed.
Resource dependence
During the current year, Niger relied on its local resources in the general budget amounting to 2,653 billion CFA francs (4.4 billion euros), of which 57% was allocated to economic and social development areas. This is the first time that the country has approved a general budget without external aid.
Niamey was receiving financial support from donors representing 40% of the general budget, but most partners suspended their assistance after the recent coup, which prompted the coup leaders to program the 2024 budget without aid or grants.
In a previous interview with Al Jazeera Net, financial expert and advisor to the Mauritanian Minister of Economy, Abdullah Ould Awah, said that Niger can survive on its resources if it continues to adopt an austerity approach and focuses on investment expenditures and supporting economic and social development.
Recently, Niamey began exporting its oil from the Agadem field to the port of Simi Kabudji in Benin to be marketed abroad, and the government took a $400 million loan from China to support its general budget, to be repaid after exporting the oil.
Niger, along with Burkina Faso and Mali, which form the Sahel Confederation, are seeking to break their monetary link with Paris, because countries that rely on the CFA franc are required to keep 85% of their hard currency reserves with the French central bank.
New partners
In the context of seeking to move the wheel of the economy and search for new partners to extract resources and implement the policy of moving towards supporting the principle of local content that the coup leaders promised, Niger has intensified its efforts to find investors in the field of economy and trade.
After a working visit by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed El Amin Zein to Turkey and Iran at the beginning of this year, visits by Turkish officials to Niamey continued to enhance the path of economic and military cooperation.
Last July, a high-level Turkish delegation headed by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan paid a working visit to Niger to begin concluding economic and military deals. The delegation included the Ministers of Defense, Energy and Minerals. On the sidelines of the joint meeting, Ali Zein said that his country would provide all facilities to Turkish companies wishing to invest in the energy and mining sectors.
In keeping with the policy of distancing itself from the French alliance, Niger and Chad agreed to build a pipeline at an appropriate time to export Nigerien oil via the port of Cameroon, as an alternative to the port of Seme Kbodji in Benin, which the military council accuses of siding with France.
In recent weeks, there have been exchanges of visits between officials in Niamey and the capital, Algiers, and relations between the two countries have returned to what they were before the coup.
On August 9, the two countries agreed to resume construction of the gas pipeline linking Nigeria as a source country, Niger as a transit country, and Algeria as an export center to Italy, Spain, and the rest of the European Union countries. The Algerian government bore the burden of Niger’s share of the project costs, and the Algerian company Sonatrach returned to work in Niamey.
On the 13th of this month, the Nigerien Prime Minister visited Algeria with a high-level delegation that included two members of the ruling military council, in a move that observers considered to reflect Niamey’s desire to remain within its depth in the Sahel region, and also indicates a clear interest in finding economic partners who adopt an anti-French policy.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Sultan Al-Ban, a writer specialising in African affairs, said that the military council in Niger is expressing its desire to open the way for companies affiliated with its new allies and to get rid of economic dependence on Paris.
Al-Ban added that the Military Council’s preoccupation with severing military and security ties with France and the West in general has quickly disrupted work on the economic side, but it is counting on the expected oil revenues in the immediate future.
