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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 NIAMEY 000847 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT: PASS TO MCA; DRL; AF/W FOR BACHMAN; AF/RSA FOR 
HARPOLE; 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID KPAO PGOV PHUM SOCI KCOR KMCA NG
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION PUBLISHER, EDITOR JAILED FOR ALLEGING 
GON TILT TOWARD IRAN - BUT THE REAL STORY HERE IS CORRUPTION 
 
REF: A. NIAMEY 682 
 
     ¶B. NIAMEY 746 
     ¶C. NIAMEY 788 
     ¶D. NIAMEY 741 
 
NIAMEY 00000847  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU) On August 4, Maman Abou and Oumarou Keita - 
respectively the Publisher and the Editor-in-Chief of "Le 
Republican," Niger's oldest, best respected, and most widely 
circulated opposition weekly - were arrested and jailed by 
the Detective Branch of the Nigerien National Police. The two 
men were charged with dissemination of false news and 
defamation of the Government of Niger (GON) after the GON 
lodged a complaint relating to an editorial published in the 
July 27 edition of "Le Republican." In this editorial, Keita 
alleged that Prime Minister (PM) Hama Amadou was pushing for 
a realignment of Nigerien foreign policy toward nations like 
Iran and Venezuela and away from Niger's traditional western 
aid partners. Many Nigerien observers consider the storm over 
the editorial a red-herring, and claim that the GON is in 
fact out to punish the paper for its recent revelations of 
government corruption - an issue "Le Republican" claimed 
underlay the foreign policy "realignment" in the first place. 
The GON's move against the newspaper has become mixed up with 
an ongoing public controversy over corruption in the 
government's management of a large donor funded effort to aid 
the country's failing primary schools. END SUMMARY 
 
---------------- 
PROXIMATE CAUSES 
---------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In a July 27 editorial, "Le Republican" made wide 
ranging claims that Hama Amadou sought a foreign policy 
realignment favoring Iran and Venezuela over traditional 
western partners. The proof consisted entirely in the fact 
that the PM had had a dinner meeting with the Iranian 
Ambassador. The conjectural element of the editorial was as 
elaborate as its factual basis was stingy, with "Le 
Republican" arguing that Hama's "realignment" was essentially 
a search for aid and development assistance with fewer good 
governance strings attached. Describing the PM's supposed 
logic, Keita wrote: "one must go and compromise with the 
devil, as he has no regard for transparency in the management 
of public funds, or for human rights." The editorial alleged 
that the PM made this move after European donors suspended 
payments to a ten-year education development fund (known as 
the PDDE) after an audit revealed poor management and 
probable corruption in the form of over-billing, no bid 
contracts, and implausible expenses. Fearing that his 
government's ability to embezzle donor funds for party 
building and personal enrichment would run afoul of western 
donors' safeguards, Amadou allegedly intended to reorient 
Niger's aid relationship toward less scrupulous partners like 
Venezuela and Iran. The editorial cited alleged comments by 
the PM in which he lashed out at "whites," and their tendency 
to tell the GON how to use donor money, and contrasting this 
approach unfavorably with that of other donors, like Iran, 
China, and Venezuela, who adopted a more laissez faire 
approach. 
 
¶3. (U) The GON reacted quickly to the editorial. On July 31, 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ran a response in the 
government daily "Le Sahel," denying any shift in Nigerien 
foreign policy, and stressing that the country sought good 
relations with and aid from all nations, favoring none. The 
response also emphasized that the President, not the Prime 
Minister, was responsible for determining the course of 
Nigerien foreign policy. On August 4, the GON filed a 
defamation case against "Le Republican's" leadership. Maman 
Abou and Oumarou Keita were arrested and placed under 
investigative detention by the Detective Branch. On August 8, 
the men were transferred, respectively, to the civil prisons 
of Tera and Filingue. They remain incarcerated as of this 
writing, with a court date tentatively scheduled for August 
¶14. NOTE: "Le Republican" continues to appear on a weekly 
basis, and no move has been made to ban its publication. END 
NOTE 
 
¶4. (U) Maman Abou and his staff at "Le Republican" are no 
strangers to this sort of controversy. In November of 2003, 
 
NIAMEY 00000847  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
Abou was arrested and charged with defamation and theft after 
publishing an article accusing the GON of awarding no-bid 
contracts to its political supporters. The article was based 
partly on documents that Abou allegedly obtained illegally 
from the concerned ministries. While Abou was given 
provisional release in early 2004, and has never been brought 
to trial, charges from this 2003 case are still, technically, 
pending against him. Ironically, Oumarou Keita had 
participated in a Public Affairs sponsored panel discussion 
on freedom of the press at the American Cultural Center two 
weeks before his arrest. 
 
------------------- 
THE PDDE CONNECTION 
------------------- 
 
¶5. (U) The arrests were accompanied by the usual 
denunciations by the NGO, private press, and human rights 
community, yet these groups also alleged that the GON sought 
to punish "Le Republican" less for the foreign policy piece 
than for its recent reporting on the PDDE scandal. The Plan 
Decennal pour le Developpement de l'Education (PDDE) is a 
ten-year, 26 billion CFA (approximately $51 million) program 
funded by the World Bank and a consortium of European 
bi-lateral donors led by France. It is the local face of the 
Education for All Initiative (Fast Track). The program began 
in May of 2005; by winter, the "Nigerien street" was rife 
with rumors to the effect that substantial sums were being 
skimmed off the top by the GON agency charged with 
administering the program - the Ministry of Basic Education 
and Literacy. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Alone among private opposition papers, "Le 
Republican" went beyond vituperative editorial comment into 
the realm of true investigative reporting with its accurate 
and extensive coverage of the PDDE scandal. From February 
onward, the paper published reports of corruption in the 
administration of the PDDE based on information received from 
sources within the Ministry and its regional directorates. 
The titles are indicative of the content: "No bid contracts 
and overcharges at Basic Education" (February 16); "The 
overcharges that Hamani Harouna' (then GON Minister of Basic 
Education) 'is hiding" (16th March). The journal re-printed 
copies of correspondence between the Ministry of Basic 
Education and its suppliers, and between Minister Hamani 
Harouna and Prime Minister Hama Amadou in which agreements on 
prices and supplies were fixed by the Minister and cleared by 
the PM's office. The articles also featured tables that 
contrasted the market prices of school supplies with the 
prices paid by the GON using PDDE funds, and alleged 
overcharges of 187% to 800%. 
 
¶7. (U) "Le Republican's" reports and the public's 
speculations were born out when the donors' group released 
the first annual audit of the PDDE on June 6. Deloitte and 
Touche SA of Burkina Faso, selected by the GON, conducted an 
audit covering calendar year 2005.  The audit revealed a 
consistent pattern of over-charges, unjustified expenses, 
unauthorized obligations, no-bid contracting, bias toward 
politically connected firms in the awarding of contracts, and 
multiple instances of payments being made for materials that 
were never received. All of this, the audit alleged, was 
enabled by poor inventory and management controls. In 
substance if not in tone, Deloitte and Touche echoed "Le 
Republican's" reports of February and March. The audit cited 
instances of unexplained mark ups, in which the Ministry 
added as much as 20 million CFA (approximately $40,000) to a 
supplier's contract for no apparent reason. In another 
instance, fuel bills for Ministry vehicles were so inflated 
that the cars would have to have been driven 1,000 km a day 
for 25 days in a row to justify the expense. Time after time, 
the auditors concluded sections of their report with language 
such as: "we are not in a position to certify the rational 
utilization of these funds; in our view, these payments have 
not been made in a rational manner;" or, simply, "this 
payment is not rational." 
 
¶8. (U) In a public letter to the Minister of Basic Education 
on June 29, the donors' group announced the suspension of 
payments and demanded that the GON meet three conditions to 
restore their confidence: the Ministry of Basic Education 
must conduct an audit, again by Deloitte and Touche, of 
moneys spent during the spring 2006 semester; the GON must 
provide a written response to the findings of the 2005 audit, 
 
NIAMEY 00000847  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
making clear how it intends to rectify bias in the 
contracting system, reimburse misused funds, and apply 
administrative and judicial penalties to responsible persons; 
finally, acting in accordance with Nigerien law, the GON must 
punish any individual responsible for the misuse of PDDE 
funds, and reorganize the management of the funds. These 
measures will be reviewed by the partners, who reserve the 
right to determine if they have been implemented with 
sufficient rigor. Speaking on behalf of the donors on July 
20, The French Ambassador underscored their concern, noting: 
"it is up to the government to cope with the consequences," 
of the scandal. 
 
¶9. (U) In light of its earlier reportage, "Le Republican" was 
well positioned to make hay with the results of the audit, 
which received extensive coverage in its June 15 edition. A 
headline stating: "Embezzlement at MEBA, the audit confirms: 
overcharges, payment without delivery, unauthorized spending 
by the Ministry, and the degradation of the procedures for 
public procurement," covered "Le Republican's" front page 
that day. The paper continued to report the audit's 
conclusions and draw attention to the PDDE scandal in 
subsequent issues, under headlines like: "embezzlement of 
public funds at the Ministry of Basic Education." 
 
¶10. (SBU) The pace of events quickened after the release of 
the audit. In a press conference following the audit's 
release, Basic Education Minister Hamani Harouna appeared to 
blame his predecessor at Basic Education, GON Health Minister 
Ari Ibrahim, for some of the Ministry's management problems. 
Ibrahim, a member of another ruling coalition political 
party, responded in kind, and the GON was widely perceived to 
have cut its losses by turning both men out of office on June 
27th (reftel A). In mid-July, the gravity of the crisis 
facing Nigerien schools, and the prevalence of corruption in 
the education sector were underscored by abysmal standardized 
test results (reftels B, C). This convergence of 
circumstances: popular concern over the quality of public 
school instruction; corruption in the administration of the 
PDDE; corruption in the administration of school exams; and, 
the abysmal test results, set the political climate for July, 
and dominated debate. This pressure appears to have inspired 
various responses by the GON, some positive, others negative. 
As noted in reftels B and C, the GON cracked down on 
corruption in the administration of school exams, but left 
bribe payers untouched. While the GON replaced both Hamani 
Harouna and Ari Ibrahim with more technically competent and 
politically neutral successors, it has yet to embark on the 
wide-ranging reforms and prosecutions called for by the 
donors' group. Finally, on August 4, the GON moved against 
Abou and Keita. 
 
---------------------- 
CONCLUSION AND COMMENT 
---------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Unlike the Superior Council on Communications' 
(CSC) June 28 banning of the private opposition weekly 
"L'Opinion," (reftel D) the arrest and imprisonment of Maman 
Abou and Oumarou Keita appears to be linked to much larger 
political developments in Niger. A foreign policy shift 
toward Iran and Venezuela, however, is not one of them. When 
viewed against the rigorous journalistic standards manifest 
in its reporting on the PDDE affair, "Le Republican's" July 
27 foreign policy editorial seems a shoddy piece of work. A 
mountain of conjecture rests on a grain of fact - that the PM 
had dinner with the Iranian Ambassador at around the same 
time that Hugo Chavez was touring some neighboring capitals. 
 
¶12. (SBU) In point of fact, Nigerien foreign policy has 
always been an outgrowth of the country's dependence on 
foreign aid. More than forty percent of the national budget 
derives from foreign assistance; for capitol projects, that 
figure is closer to ninety percent. Therefore, Niger is open 
to any country that could help it meet its development needs, 
make payroll, or simply provide a good price for its few 
marketable exports. This precariousness contributes to the 
GON's sensitivity toward allegations of aid mismanagement. 
(The GON has often shared its frustration at the prospect of 
aid money flowing through NGOs and IOs with stricter 
management controls rather than through its ministries with 
bi-lateral donors, including us). But it also enforces a 
certain moderation. The world's least developed country, 
Niger simply cannot afford to antagonize donors, either by 
 
NIAMEY 00000847  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
abusing their funds or by pursuing an ideological foreign 
policy oriented toward pariah states and marginal aid donors 
like Iran and Venezuela. The country's poverty enforces 
pragmatism; its dependency enforces good habits. We therefore 
expect that the GON will eventually move to satisfy the PDDE 
donors' conditions, probably during the fall legislative 
session. 
 
¶13. (SBU) However wrong Abou and Keita were about the roots 
of Nigerien foreign policy, ultimately "Le Republican" is not 
being punished for what it did poorly, but for what it did 
impeccably - revealing and criticizing the corruption at the 
heart of the Ministry of Basic Education. The paper itself 
made this argument in a special free issue that appeared on 
the day after the arrests. In a lead article entitled: "the 
tree that hides the forest," Abou and Keita asked: "in 2006 
alone, we have proven the embezzlement involving several 
billion francs, and' (this was) 'confirmed by an impartial 
audit. So, who must go to prison?" That is a question to 
which the GON has so far provided all the wrong answers. END 
COMMENT 
ALLEN