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General Abdourahamane Tiani was an unknown figure until he seized power in Niger on 26 July, detaining President Mohamed Bazoum.
He now leads a junta facing ECOWAS threats of intervention. What do we know about the commander at the centre of Niger’s crisis?
1. Strong-headed
When General Abdourahamane Tiani is evoked with some of the figures who knew him as head of the presidential guard for Mahamadou Issoufou and then Mohamed Bazoum, one description comes back constantly: his stubborn character. “Once he has decided something, it is difficult to make him change his mind,†explains an advisor to the current head of state, who remains detained by the putschists at the Presidential Palace, but still refuses to resign.
2. Withdrawn
As head of the presidential guard, Tiani was supposed to be omnipresent with the head of state. Yet the interested party stood out for his discretion in recent years. Even if he participated in all of Mahamadou Issoufou’s national movements, and accompanied him to the airport for each foreign departure, the general remained very reserved.
“President Issoufou spoke to him a lot, especially when he went to rest at his farm outside Niamey. But Tiani answered very little,†says a former minister.
3. Close to Issoufou…
Appointed in 2011 as head of the presidential guard, Tiani is described by a former minister as “very close†to Mahamadou Issoufou. Why this relationship? Some suggest a familial explanation: the general’s wife, Sabira Issa, is from the Tahoua region, like the former head of state. A soldier, she serves in the Water and Forests docket.
According to other sources, Mahamadou Issoufou simply wanted to bring in new blood to the army, choosing a soldier barely 50 years old, with no ties to the previous power.
4. …but much less so with Bazoum
With Mohamed Bazoum, the relationship was much more distant, even non-existent, undoubtedly because the new president had wanted to replace him as soon as he took power in 2021. However, the two men had learned to work together. In 2022, while the general would have had to leave his post to pursue training abroad (in China and then Nigeria), they agreed once again to extend their collaboration due to the country’s worrying security situation.
5. Hausa
Originally from Toukounous, in the Filingué region, a town located northeast of Niamey towards Tahoua, Abdourahamane Tiani is Hausa, like more than half the population of Niger. Born in 1964, he attended secondary school in Filingué before joining the Issa Kombé and then Kassaï high schools in Niamey.
READ MORE Will Ecowas intervene in Niger? Five key points to consider
He obtained a bachelor of arts degree there in 1984, specialising in letters and philosophy, which could have brought him closer to Mohamed Bazoum who taught this subject.
6. Trained abroad
Like many senior African army officers, General Tiani was partly trained abroad. He attended the National Active Officer School in Thiès, Senegal, and the Infantry
Application School in Montpellier, France (where he took the opportunity to successfully pass his first aid certificate).
In addition to numerous seminars in Niger, Mali or the US, he then took courses at the Royal Infantry School in Benguerir, Morocco, the Staff College in Koulikoro, Mali, and then at the College of International Security Affairs in Washington, DC.
7. UN Peacekeeper
Although the United Nations now condemns him and opposes his forcible seizure of power, Tiani has worked several times in the ranks of UN Blue Helmets. He commanded a UN battalion in Côte d’Ivoire, was a military observer and then
disarmament specialist with MONUC in the DRC – replaced by MONUSCO in 2010 – then worked as a liaison officer in Darfur, on the border between Chad and Sudan.
8. Exemplary (until now)
As a simple soldier in 1985 under Seyni Kountché, he gradually climbed the ranks of the army, first becoming a platoon leader, an officer, then finally motorised unit commander in N’Guigmi in 1997, under Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara. He then commanded battalions in Dirkou in 2002, Zinder (2003-2005), Agadez (2006) then again in Zinder, as commander of the regional defence zone in 2010, before being appointed in 2011 as the head of the presidential guard.
“He commanded troops abroad and was stationed in several important regions of the country. He is part of that generation of 50-something officers that Issoufou wanted to promote when he came to power,†summarises a Nigerien who knew him.
9. Chest full of medals
Tiani was praised, until recently, for participating several times in safeguarding the incumbent president. In 2021 and 2022, he helped thwart at least two coup attempts against Bazoum. “Even if he was closer to Issoufou than Bazoum, he fulfilled his mission of protection,†says a presidential advisor.
In 2021, just before Bazoum’s inauguration, officers attempted a takeover. Tiani had participated in defeating them. “Bazoum, who had wanted to replace him, was indebted to him,†continues the advisor. Had the Nigerien president then sinned through naivety, by granting his trust to the one who had saved him? He had in any case elevated him to the dignity of Grand Officer of the National Order of Niger in December 2021.
10. Disliked by some soldiers
Tiani’s relatives describe him as an “iron-fisted†and “popular†man with the 700 elements of the presidential guard. Yet the general, who had never involved himself in politics before this fateful July 2023, has detractors in the ranks of the army, including older officers who built their careers under the former single-party regime of the National Movement for the Development Society.
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