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HAMA AMADOU, EMBLEMATIC OPPOSITION LEADER IN NIGER AND FORMER PM DIES AGED 74

Niger’s former Prime Minister Hama Amadou died in a hospital in the country’s capital, Niamey, on Thursday, aged 74.

The cause of death was not disclosed.

Amadou was prime minister on two occasions from 1995 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2007 as well as speaker of Parliament between 2011 and 2014.

The politician unsuccessfully vied for the top seat on three occasions.

As the leader of the Nigerien Democratic Movement for an African Federation, one of the country’s major political parties, which he founded in 2009.

A prominent member of the MNSD party, he founded his own party in 2009, Nigerien Democratic Movement for an African Federation.

The prominent politician went to prison several times during his career. In 2009, he was notably incarcerated in a maximum-security prison after being accused of embezzlement, a case that was later dismissed.

In 2015, he was jailed again in connection with an investigation into an illegal network trafficking infants from Nigeria, a charge he dismissed as politically motivated.

Although Amadou was still in prison, he was cleared to stand as a presidential candidate by the Constitutional Court in the March 2016 presidential election, in which he came in second.

After leaving the country for a few years, Amadou returned to Niger in the aftermath of the July 2023 coup against Bazoum but stayed away from politics until his death.

According to local media reports, the ruling CNSP organised official funerals on Friday morning (Oct. 25). Amadou was then buried, surrounded by relatives and friends, only in his native town of Youri in Niger's west.

OPPORTUNITY CAN BE INTENTIONAL OR SPONTANEOUS: JUST BE SMART.

I was a translator on a research project in 2020, just before the COVID-19 outbreak. My job was solely practical and ended on the field, with no data collection or report writing. I was just to follow the foreign researchers wherever they went and interpret the English into Twi if a respondent could not understand them.

2 days later, after we returned to our hotel rooms one of the foreign researchers on the team emailed me some documents to fill out. It was a situational report which was supposed to be done by the Local Researchers.

I got curious. This was not part of my job requirements, but instead of emailing the foreign researcher back, I called the country coordinator and made my enquiries. I spoke my Ghana English mixed with Twi very well, so we could both understand the situation.

He said “You are smart as they told me. One of the professors said you engage well with the respondents so she recommended you are upgraded to local researcher instead of just a translator.”

I thanked him, returned to my room, filled out the situational report carefully and emailed it back. Apparently, since I was not part of the trained local researchers, they were not sure of my competence so intentionally sent me the report to fill out and assess me for the upgrade.

For the rest of the project period, I worked as all the other local researchers while still doing my translation job. At the end of the project, I went home, being paid 9 times what I signed up for.

“Opportunity [they say] come but once”, I believe otherwise, to me, an opportunity is always available, just be intentional, spontaneous and smart.