The culture of Niger is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which French colonialism formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. Niger is a country in Africa that has an ancient history, and most of modern civilization can trace its roots back to this area.
The country, located in western Africa, is landlocked and takes its name from the Niger River, which flows through the southwestern part of its territory; the name Niger derives in turn from the phrase gher n-gheren, meaning “river among rivers,” in the Tamashek language. Niger is home to several ethnic groups, the largest of which include the Hausa, the Songhai-Zarma, and the Tuareg. The country’s capital is Niamey.
Humans have lived in what is now Niger from the earliest of times. 2 to 3.5 million-year-old Australopithecus bahrelghazali remains have been found in neighboring Chad. Considerable evidence indicates that about 60,000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara Desert of northern Niger.
Later, on what was then huge fertile grasslands, from at least 7,000 BCE there was pastoralism, herding of sheep and goats, large settlements and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) from 4,000 to 3,500 BCE. One discovery suggests what is now the Sahara of northeast Niger was home to a succession of Holocene era societies.
One Saharan site illustrated how sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers lived at the edge of shallow lakes around 7700-6200 BCE, but disappeared during a period of extreme drought that may have lasted for a millennium over 6200-5200 BCE. Several former northern villages and archaeological sites date from the Green Sahara period of 7500-7000 to 3500-3000 BCE.
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When the climate returned to savanna grasslands-wetter than today's climate-and lakes reappeared in what is the modern Ténéré desert, a population practicing hunting, fishing, and cattle husbandry. North Africa enjoyed a fertile climate during the subpluvial era; what is now the Sahara supported a savanna type of ecosystem, with elephant, giraffe, and other grassland and woodland animals now typical of the Sahel region south of the desert.
By at least the 5th century BCE, Carthage and Egypt became terminals for West African gold, ivory, and slaves trading salt, cloth, beads, and metal goods. Trade continued into Roman times. Recent archaeological discoveries at Bura (in southwest Niger) and in adjacent southeast Burkina Faso have documented the existence of the iron-age Bura culture from the 3rd century CE to the 13th century CE. The Bura-Asinda system of settlements apparently covered the lower Niger River valley.
The earliest evidence for domesticated camels in the region dates from the 3rd century. Used by the Berber people, they enabled more regular contact across the entire width of the Sahara, but regular trade routes did not develop until the beginnings of the Islamic conversion of West Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries.
Two main trade routes developed. The first ran through the western desert from modern Morocco to the Niger Bend, the second from modern Tunisia to the Lake Chad area. These stretches were relatively short and had the essential network of occasional oases that established the routing as inexorably as pins in a map.
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.
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In the 19th century, contact with Europe 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.
What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era:
- The Djerma dominated Niger River valley in the southwest.
- The northern periphery of Hausaland, made mostly of those states which had resisted the Sokoto Caliphate, and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria.
- The Lake Chad basin and Kaouar in the far east, populated by Kanuri farmers and Toubou pastoralists who had once been part of the Kanem-Bornu Empire.
- The Tuareg nomads of the Aïr Mountains and Saharan desert in the vast north.
Later in history, one of the great empires of Africa called the Songhai expanded into modern day Niger, as far as Agadez, until its collapse in 1591. In the 13th century, the nomadic Tuareg pushed south into the Air Mountains, and then continued to rule over most of northern Niger, and into parts of what is now Nigeria. Different parts of the country remained ruled over by various tribes, and by the 19th century the city of Zinder had become an important hub.
The encroaching Sahara Desert has not been kind to the environment and history of Niger and its people. 5,000 years ago the north of the country was fertile grassland, and was populated by early farmers who domesticated animals and created a complex society.
Colonial Era
Niger's colonial history and development parallel that of other French West African territories. France administered her West African colonies through a governor general at Dakar, Senegal, and governors in the individual territories, including Niger.
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The French conquest began in earnest in 1899. The local population determinedly resisted against the notoriously brutal expedition in 1899 led by the French captains Paul Voulet and Charles-Paul-Louis Chanoine (also known as Julien Chanoine). It was only in 1922, after the severe drought and famine of 1913-15 and the Tuareg uprising of 1916-17, that the French established a regular administration under civilian control.
Actually, Niger was amongst the last of African nations to be colonized by Europeans, but even after WWI the age of empire was alive and the French had vested interests in the natural resources that Niger held. However, compared to other colonies, the existence of Niger as a colony was comparatively short lived, as the country gained independence in 1960.
A further revision in the organization of overseas territories occurred with the passage of the Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre) of 23 July 1956, followed by re-organizational measures enacted by the French Parliament early in 1957.
The 4 December elections (on whether to remain in the French Community, followed shortly by those for the Nigerien territorial assembly) were contested by the two political blocks of the Territorial Assembly. The Nigerien Progressive Party (PPN), originally a regional branch of the African Democratic Rally (RDA), led the Union for the Franco-African Community (UCFA) and was headed by deputy-speaker of the Assembly Hamani Diori. The other block was led by the then majority leader of the Assembly, Djibo Bakary.
On the 18th Niger declared itself a republic within the French Community and the Territorial Assembly became the Constituent Assembly. This date (18 December 1958) is celebrated as Republic Day, the national holiday of Niger, and considered the date of the founding of the nation.
In 1958 Diori became president of the provisional government, and then became Prime Minister of Niger in 1959. Having organised a powerful coalition of Hausa, Fula, and Djerma leaders, especially made up of chiefs and traditional leaders, in support of Niger's "Yes" vote in the 1959 referendum, Diori gained French favor.
During the 1959-1960 period, the French government banned all political parties except the PPN, effectively making Niger a one-party state. On 11 July 1960 France agreed to Niger becoming fully independent.
The French Fifth Republic passed a revision of the French Community allowing membership of independent states. On 28 July the Nigerien Legislative Assembly became the Nigerien National Assembly. Independence was declared on 3 August 1960 under the leadership of Prime Minister Diori. Subsequently, in November 1960 Diori was elected to the new position of President of Niger by the National Assembly.
During his presidency, Diori's government favored the maintenance of traditional social structures and the retention of close economic ties with France. He was re-elected unopposed in 1965 and 1970.
Independence and Political Turmoil
For its first 14 years as an independent state Niger was run by a single-party civilian regime under the presidency of Hamani Diori. Links with France remained, with Diori allowing the development of French-led uranium mining in Arlit and supporting France in the Algerian War. Relations with other African states were mostly "positive", with the exception of Dahomey (Benin), owing to a border dispute.
Almost immediately, because of the power vacuum left behind once the French had departed, Niger succumbed to brutal military rule for the next 30 years until 1991. A small return to democracy happened here, but was followed by further military rule from 1996 to 1999. Since then, Niger has returned to democracy, in what is labeled the ‘fifth republic’, however, politics remains extremely unstable in the country.
On 15 April 1974, Lieutenant colonel Seyni Kountché led a military coup that ended Diori's rule. Diori was imprisoned until 1980 and remained under house arrest (he died in April 1989 at the age of 72). The government that followed, while plagued by coup attempts of its own, survived until 1993.
Upon Kountché's death in November 1987, he was succeeded by his chief of staff Col. Ali Saibou. Saibou liberalized some of Niger's laws and policies, and promulgated a new constitution. He released political prisoners, including Diori and his old political nemesis Djibo Bakary.
New political parties and civic associations sprang up, and a National Conference was convened in July 1991 to prepare the way for the adoption of a new constitution and the holding of free and fair elections. A transitional government was installed in November 1991 to manage the affairs of state until the institutions of the Third Republic were put in place in April 1993.
In 1993, Mahamane Ousmane, the Democratic and Social Convention (CDS) party candidate, won the presidential election with the support of a coalition of parties. Ousmane dissolved the legislature and called new legislative elections, but the National Movement for the Development of Society (MNSD) party won the largest group of seats, so Ousmane was compelled to appoint Hama Amadou of the MNSD as prime minister.
Since 1990, Tuareg and Toubou groups that had been leading the Tuareg Rebellion claiming they lacked attention and resources from the central government. As the culmination of an initiative started in 1991, the government signed peace accords in April 1995 with these groups.
The paralysis of government between the president and the Prime Minister who no longer agreed gave Col. Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara a rationale to overthrow the Third Republic and depose the first democratically elected president of Niger, on 27 January 1996. Baré organized a presidential election in June 1996. He ran against four other candidates, including Ousmane.
When his efforts to justify his coup and subsequent questionable election failed to convince donors to restore multilateral and bilateral economic assistance, a desperate Baré ignored the international embargo on Libya seeking funds for Niger's economy.
In April 1999, Baré was assassinated in a coup led by Maj. Daouda Malam Wanké who established a transitional National Reconciliation Council to oversee the drafting of a constitution for a Fifth Republic with a French style semi-presidential system.
In votes that international observers found to be generally free and fair, the Nigerien electorate approved the new constitution in July 1999 and held legislative and presidential elections in October and November 1999. Heading a MNSD/CDS coalition, Tandja Mamadou won the presidency.
In July 2004, Niger held municipal elections nationwide as part of its decentralization process. Some 3,700 people were elected to new local governments in 265 newly established communes. In November and December 2004, Niger held presidential and legislative elections. Mamadou Tandja was elected to his second five-year presidential term with 65% of the vote in an election that international observers called generally free and fair.
The Second Tuareg insurgency in Niger began in 2007 when a previously unknown group, the Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice (MNJ), emerged. The predominantly Tuareg group issued a number of demands, mainly related to development in the north. It attacked military and other facilities and laid landmines in the north.
Despite the apparent referendum and election victories, Tandja and his actions remained unpopular with many, and on February 18, 2010, he was deposed in a coup. Although reports on the incident were initially varied and conflicting, it was eventually announced that Tandja and other members of his government had been seized by soldiers and were being detained.
Later that evening the coup participants announced the formation of a military junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, and said that they had suspended the country’s constitution, dissolved all state institutions, and intended to restore democracy.
On February 23 the junta named former cabinet minister Mahamadou Danda as prime minister, and a 20-member transition government was named on March 1. A new constitution, which curbed the presidential powers that Tandja had introduced in 2009, was approved by voters in October 2010.
From 2011 to 2021, Mahamadou Issoufou served two terms as president of Niger.
The junta held presidential and legislative elections on January 31, 2011. The Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism-Tarayya (Parti Nigérien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme-Tarayya; PNDS), an established opposition party, won the greatest representation in the National Assembly by a single party with 39 seats; it was followed by the MNSD with 26 seats.
No one presidential candidate received an outright majority, and a runoff election was scheduled for March 12 with the two front-runners-Mahamadou Issoufou, a longtime opposition leader and head of the PNDS, who received 36 percent of the vote, and Seyni Oumarou, a MNSD leader and former prime minister, who received 23 percent of the vote.
Issoufou was victorious in the runoff election, capturing about 58 percent of the vote. His inauguration on April 7, 2011, returned the country to civilian rule. The peaceful transition to democracy was followed by a resumption of foreign aid, which had been frozen after the coup.
Various Islamic militant groups had become more active in the region after Issoufou took office, and attacks by those groups within Niger became a growing concern. Although there were isolated incidents involving al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib and smaller groups, most notable was the threat from Boko Haram, which was based in neighbouring Nigeria and had terrorized that country for years before launching attacks in nearby countries. In 2015 it launched an attack in southern Niger. Niger joined with other countries in the region to combat the group and soon saw progress on that front.
Niger also strove to accommodate tens of thousands of refugees who had fled from Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and settled in southern Niger.
Meanwhile, a large demonstration was held in Niamey in December 2013 by Nigeriens who were angry that there had not been noticeable progress with improving the country’s standards of living under Issoufou; it was the first such display of discontent since he had taken office. Some also protested media censorship and alleged corruption in government.
In December 2015 Issoufou claimed that the government had foiled a coup, with several military officers being arrested. Some opposition leaders, however, questioned the claims and accused Issoufou of trying to create drama ahead of the February 2016 presidential and legislative elections.
Issoufou was once again the flag bearer of the PNDS and faced 14 challengers for the presidency.
The political situation has not been helped by the fact that Niger has been kept extremely poor since its independence little over 50 years ago, since its subsistence economy is at the mercy of unavoidable environmental degradation such as drought and desertification.
The country straddles the Sahara and Sahelian climate zones. Unfortunately Niger chronically suffers from drought, making fresh produce scarce and erratic.
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