Niger: Uranium gate, ex-president Issoufou Mahamadou in the sights of justice | Niger Express

The revelation by a confidential letter “Africa Intelligence” (AI) of the presence of the name of the former Nigerien president Mahamadou Issoufou among the beneficiaries of retrocommissions in the opaque sale/purchase of 2500 tons of uranium in 2011 by the French group Orano (formerly Areva), known as the uranium gate, caused shock waves in Niger and far beyond.

However, everything seems to indicate that we are only at the beginning of the elements gathered by the American and French justices. A bad timing for the darling ex-president of Paris.

The coincidence of the calendar can sometimes be cruel: while the African diplomatic and political ghota was preparing to go to Nairobi last weekend to attend the presentation, with great fanfare, of the Mo Ibrahim Prize to Mahamadou Issoufou, its 2020 laureate , Africa Intelligence revealed on Thursday 23 April that the name of the former Nigerien president appeared twice on the list of people who received kickbacks during the purchase in 2011 by Orano of 2,500 tonnes of uranium from the Société des heritage of mines in Niger (SOPAMIN).

Known as the uranium gate, the purchase was automatically followed by the resale of this quantity of uranium, causing a loss of nearly 101 million dollars for Areva (now Orano) then directed Anne Lauvergeon, assisted by Sebastian de Montessus, in charge of the mining department at the French nuclear group. According to revelations made last weekend, under the code name of T3, the former president received a first payment of 2.6 million dollars transferred to the account of a bank in Dubai.

American and French investigators also suspect Mahamadou Issoufou of having been the recipient, still under the code name of T3, of a second payment of 800,000 euros transferred to an account domiciled in a Geneva bank. In total, the former Nigerian president, whose friendships with Anne Lauvergeon are notoriously known, would have received no less than 3.4 million dollars.

half-confession

The conditions of the sale of this large quantity of uranium from SOPAMIN to Areva had aroused all the more incomprehension in specialized circles as it did not correspond to usual practice. Indeed, as shareholders, Areva and the State of Niger via SOPAMIN shared out, in proportion to their weight in the shareholding, the quantities of uranium extracted from the subsoil of Niger. Each shareholder was then free to approach the client with the highest bid.

Faced with the incomprehension aroused by this flash and opaque sale to Areva, Hassoumi Massaoudou, loyal to President Issoufou, and his chief of staff at the time of the events, had ruled out any financial damage suffered by Niger in this operation. He had even claimed that part of the profits drawn by the Niger State had been used to acquire military equipment for the presidential guard for nearly 800 million FCFA (more than 1.3 million euros).

However, these assertions had remained unverifiable, the financial repercussions of the transaction, which catches up today the ex-president Issoufou and with him his director of the time, had not been registered in the budget of the State of Niger. Part of the sums that could have returned to Niger therefore ultimately went in the form of kickbacks paid to personalities, including the former president.

Another part would have been paid into the SOPAMIN account domiciled in a Parisian bank and on which the former chief of staff of President Issoufou and current Nigerien Minister of Foreign Affairs had the signature.

According to a reliable source, during the same period, a check for 180,000 euros had been drawn from the Paris accounts of SOPAMIN for the benefit of La Revue, a publication created and directed by Béchir Ben Ahmed, founder of the pan-African press group Jeune Afrique died in May 2021 in Paris.

A money man

The uranium gate had provoked an outcry in Niger, in the ranks of civil society and opposition parties. Despite huge gaps in the government’s version, the case had not been brought to court in Niger.

For Nigeriens, the hope of a lifting of the veil on the uranium gate had come from the decision of the French justice to open an investigation targeting the former management team of Areva, including Anne Lauvergeon and Sebastian de Montessus, a close friend of the former Nigerien president and who was then Mines Director of Areva.

Pending judicial developments in France but also in the United States where justice has also taken up this case, the people of Niger are already beginning to see more clearly about the origin of the flash enrichment of their ex-president.

Between luxurious apartment bought in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, luxury cars, villas with heliport under construction on the banks of the Niger River in Niamey, bank accounts topped up in France, Niger, South Africa and Dubai, Mahamadou Issoufou has built in ten years in power (2011-2021) a fortune estimated at the very least between 10 and 15 million euros.

In addition to the uranium gate, various sectors of Nigerien civil society maintain that the signing by mutual agreement, within the framework of the AU Summit organized in July 2019 in Niamey, of public-private partnerships (PPP) with Turkey for the renovation of the Diori Hamani international airport (152 million euros), the Radisson Blu Hotel (37 million euros), the Hôtel des finances (37 million euros) were able to supply the origin of the colossal fortune of Mahamadou Issoufou.

Since his departure from the head of state, the former president, who has become, among other things, ECOWAS mediator in Burkina Faso, president of the UN panel on the Sahel, has been leading the way, traveling almost exclusively on chartered flights for conferences in Africa, Europe, the United States and the Gulf.

From Brussels to Paris and Washington, via Abidjan and Dakar, wherever he goes, Niger’s ambassadors are ordered to provide him with a vehicle “worthy of his rank”. In other words, their own company vehicle.

A permanent deception

After the shock wave, the revelations of Africa Intelligence will open our eyes, especially outside Niger, to the hidden face of former President Issoufou.

Through communication campaigns, lobbying, dearly paid, an essential part of which is provided by the Image 7 agency of the communicator Anne Meaux, great friend of Anne Lauvergeon, herself a great friend of Mahamadou Issofou, the former president succeeded in selling abroad the figure of a perfect democratic, that of a politician with integrity and irreproachable to the point where some of his compatriots often wonder if their foreign interlocutors really speak to them of the same personality.

Behind the facade and the display, the ex-president was the craftsman of a relentless repression against his opponents. The best known of them, former Prime Minister Hama Amadou has been vegetating for more than two years in exile in Paris by the sole will of the ex-president who forced him in 2016 to campaign for the second round of the presidential election from his cell in Filingué prison, northwest of Niamey.

The former president will also have been a great gravedigger of freedoms, in particular through the law on cybercrime which made it possible to throw behind bars journalists, civil society actors and activists, including the influencer Samira Sabou detained then sentenced with suspension on a complaint of Sani Mahamadou Issoufou, son of his father.

While his good governance is celebrated abroad, the ex-president left a legacy of state clientelism, heavy files of corruption and embezzlement of public funds, the most emblematic of which relates to a loss of nearly 78 billion (approximately 117 million euros) to the detriment of the Nigerien Ministry of Defence, also known as the “MDN gate”.

Uranium gate, MDN gate and many other businesses were left as a legacy by the ex-president who had the genius to project a completely different image of himself abroad, to the point of winning the Mo Ibrahim prize supposed to reward a Head of State who has distinguished himself by his attachment to alternation and good governance.

With the AI ​​revelations, and legal developments in the United States and Morocco, some analysts say this is the end of a sham that has lasted so long. And perhaps even the beginning of a long and painful descent into hell.