ABIDJAN: Niger’s ruling General Abdourahamane Tiani has been criss-crossing the unstable country’s oft-poor highways in recent weeks, visiting regions hard-hit by the growing militant insurgency in an attempt to reassure fearful civilians.
Since toppling democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum in a July 2023 coup, Tiani has been forced to contend with attacks from Islamist militants on multiple fronts.
While Boko Haram has dug itself in the southwest near the militant hotspot of Lake Chad, fighters linked to Al-Qaeda or the Daesh group have made a fiefdom of the western Tillaberi region.
It is in these lawless borderlands straddling Mali and Burkina Faso that Tiani embarked on a vast trip by car from early October with the aim of “seeing the state of the roads and talking with the people.”
For some analysts the round trip also serves to quell the concerns of both Nigerien civilians and the international community about the junta, which has struggled to keep a lid on the Sahel country’s various security crises since seizing power.
