Niger. NOT Niger-ia.
Two completely different countries, equally fascinating.
One has skyscraper and oil fields,
the other has Uranium and dancing face painted men
that put on a beauty pageant for female judges that get to sleep with the winner that they select.
Everybody, I'm your host Barbs. Not too many people know too much about Niger.
It doesn't pop up on many tourism sites and is usually just a footnote in the books about Africa.
Literally in Lonely Planet's book on West Africa,
this is all they have on Niger.
But for what it's worth, this country is fascinating to say the least and dare I say, it's a top destination
If you're exploring the obscure lesser-known reaches of the planet and speaking of the planet, here's the map !
Now if there was any country that exemplified the definition of a Saharan nation,
it would probably be either Niger or Mauritania.
Remember that episode? Man one day, I want to ride that train !
Niger played an important role throughout history
and if you dig deep in the sand,
you'll start to understand why.
First of all:
The country is the largest in West Africa who landlocked bordered by seven other countries
and makes up, 1.3 million square kilometres or 500,000 square miles
and the shape of the country kinda looks like a chicken drumstick.
The country is divided into 7 regions and 1 capital district for the capital and largest city, Niamey, located in the southwest.
After that, the second largest city is Zinder in the southeast and Maradi in the central south
Speaking of which about 95% of the population lives in the south where most of the road networks lie.
The largest and least populated of the region's is the massive Agadez Region in north,
where only one paved road goes all the way up and stops at the mining town of Arlit.
Otherwise from there, there are only dirt paths through the desert that reached the nearly uninhabited outskirts of the unforgiving northeastern Saharan regions.
They extend to the furthest settlement Madama, a military outpost that patrols the border with Libya and Chad.
Otherwise from Libya you have only one main road that passes through the Kourou Arkenne Airstrip,
that is actually split by the border of both countries and from there....Good luck!
Within the country, there are two international airports:
Niamey Diori Hamani International
and Agadez Mano Dayak International up north.
Currently the country is in the process of constructing a rail line that will connect to Benin
and onwards to the port of Cotonou for cargo transport to the Atlantic Ocean.
A station has already been built at Niamey and future stations are being worked on.
Now, aside from some river boundaries in the South,
most of the current borders of Niger were kind of arbitrarily drawn between the French and other regional powers during colonial times.
Until 1931, Niger actually kind of used to have half of Chad's land but then it was like...
"All right, Western Central African colonies, how we doing?
We hate you.
Ah ! Good as usual I see.
Anyways, is there anything you'd like to discuss?
Yeah, now that you mention it, why doesn't Niger get like the entire two besties in Eddy Plateau?
Well, most of his people are over two thousand kilometers away. I mean you drew these lines. What do you expect me to say?
Okay, fine, Chad. You're taking over the 90 area thing.
Fine! But we still hate you!
Otherwise, if Niger was known for something,
it would be kind of like the country with the most remote and difficult to reach landmarks,
hidden away in the empty uninhabited deserts with limited access options.
I mean if you zoom in you can see the UTA flight 772 crash site monument with no roads leading to it.
It's just a monument in the middle of the sand.
Hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest town.
A bit west, there used to be one last living tree in the middle of Ténéré Desert,
with no others in a 400 kilometer radius until a drunk driver knocked it over in the 70s,
and now they've placed a metallic monument in the trees honor.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg!
If you decide to visit some places of interest might include things like :
This desert : Caravan town
The Maradi Palace and Grand Bazaar
The National museum of Niger
The Djado and Djaba city ruins
Agadez grand Mosque
The Ayrou Hippo tours
This old cimetery in Gobero
These caving engravings
The tuareg fesivals grounds in markets of Taouha
The "really difficult to get to" lush oasis in Timia
Kaouré Giraffe reserve
The animal Bazaar of Balleya
Zinder is kind of like the cultural capital of the country, with ruins.
The Birni Quarter and the Sultan's Palace
Oh, there's a national park called W National Park. Yeah, that's just the name, W National Park.
It's pretty cool with lots of animals and stuff.
And speaking of nature and animals. This makes the perfect transition into the next segment, the
Physical Geography
Now Niger sticks out physically because on the surface it seems kind of desolate,
But if you look closer,
you'll see all these weird clues that give you a picture on how the area used to look like thousands of years ago,
before the desert took over.
First of all Niger is one of the hottest countries on earth often called the frying pan of the world.
I mean if you disregard the chicken drumstick thing it also kind of looks like a frying pan.
Raindrops are said to sometimes evaporate before they even hit the ground. About 80% of the country is made up of
Saharan and Tenere desert, which by the way holds the iron and tin era in nature reserves, a unesco world heritage site,
and the fourth largest nature reserve in the world. The country has three main extinct volcano lava field plateaus the jabo plateau in the
Northeast the smaller zinder plateau further south where you can find the tallest peak II Duke Alton Tagus almost the entire country is located in
Either the Sahara or Sahel zone which gives them a line of agriculture versus a line of grazing for livestock this little dangling salient
right here in the south of the teyla battery region is part of the W national park and is the wettest and greenest area in
all of Niger. To the west you get the longest and most
Important river of the country the Niger River, where the country gets its name from, passing through the capital in EMA
The Niger River is strange because it kind of flows in a backwards
crescent, starting in the Guinea Highlands and then ends in the Gulf of Guinea in
Nigeria. This River provides water and irrigation to over a quarter of the entire population.
If you zoom in on the Tahoe region,
you can even see the outline of former flowing river tributaries that irrigated much of the land inland.
Otherwise a series of dwelt ax or drainage basins can be found all over about a thousand of them in the country.
175 of which are permanent, fed by underwater aquifers. They provide many outskirt communities with water as well.
The largest inland body of water is the northwestern section of Lake Chad.
Split between four countries and today it is seeing the effects of desertification and drying up unfortunately.
Yeah, Niger is quite dry, but they have their way of getting around and adapting. And speaking of dry,
It's time for my triple shot of espresso break, which means the one and only Noah takes over this segment
Here, hold this would you?
Now as you mentioned
Niger is interesting because long ago much of it was covered in savannah and grass
And before the sands came in. Only about 1% of the land is covered in forest and about 3% is cultivated for farming.
This is kind of mind-boggling considering that somewhere on 87% of the workforce engaged in agriculture and subsistence farming. Now taken to a calendar
they constantly face droughts in the certification and it's quite a tense situation to say the least. The crops
they mostly grow our ground nuts and cotton with a somewhat noticeable livestock trade mostly with Nigeria.
Nonetheless its mineral exports that make them the most money at about 40 percent of the overall exports
There was even a gold rush when gold was discovered in the jabo plateau in 2014.
Yeah, you would think the Sahara is just a bunch of useless sand and rocks, but nope!
Nonetheless, the agatha's region is a moneymaker being the fifth largest uranium producer on earth in the mine close to the town of Pilate.
Otherwise despite the lack of cropland. They still have their own national dishes which brings us to : food
First off most meals start with a staple starch the most common one being millet fish is the most common meat specifically
Mackerel stews are very common as well. Otherwise, you have dishes like kaliesha, Moringa Kola nuts
Watch a spiced crickets Tata Barra brochettes. Pure, oak bono or African bush mango
And of course like much of West Africa, they have their own version of jollof rice. Yeah, they're virgin but not the original
Excuse me, and speaking of their own versions of things. Let's talk about the versions of people. Shall we?
Thank You Noah you're welcome, okay. So first of all a person from knee chair is called a
Nigerian with an E and an A and you have
Nigerian which is the next episode after this much like almost every African country the people of Nigeria come from a slew of
Ethno-linguistic people groups each have their own customs traditions
Tribal affiliation and story and the story of new share gets pretty interesting when you break it down
first of all
The country has about 21 million people and as of 2019 has the world's highest birth rate with about seven births per woman
Making them the lowest medium age per population at about fifteen point four years
The country is made up of a number of ethnicities the largest parent group being the Hausa at about 53% hazama
Songhai at 21.2%
Tuareg got about ten point four percent the fula at about another ten percent and the rest are other groups like the Kamui
Manga, the tubu a few arabs and others they use the West African franc as their currency
They use the types a B C D and E and F type plug outlets
Yeah, they use a lot and they drive on the right side of the road as a former French colony
Of course French is the official language of administration. It's used mostly to inter community amongst the various people groups
however
There are ten recognized
national languages spoken by the majority of people Hausa and Zama Songhai being the most commonly spoken the vast majority of the country claims to
Be Muslim
however
Much like we discussed in the Mali episode Islam in Nisha is kind of different from what you find in other Muslim majority
areas
and it's kind of hard to get a real percentage on what classifies as
Doctrinal verses syncretic Islam stemming mostly from the molokai Sunni branch of jurisprudence
You get a lot of African traditional beliefs syncretism within the Muslim community this incorporates a lot of influence from animism like shrines
charms possession rituals and so on the most famous one being the bori cult
Most women do not wear hijab Xand often expose their arms necks and legs
Alcohol is allowed they even have their own local beer brand
Otherwise Christians make up the majority of the remaining non-muslim community
The nation is classified as a secular state, although much of the laws stem from Islam
Nazir has a lot of history that dates back. Millennia, BC
It's been part of numerous empires and kingdoms and trade routes that predated colonial rule
I mean today they even have five Constituent monarchs in five regions. We'll get into that soon
but first let's kind of break down the largest main people groups the Hausa Sarma Songhai and Touareg and fula and
Here is random Hana to explain
The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in Africa, they even had their own House of flag
They number around 70 million 10 million of which mostly on the southern border are found in nature
They are mostly known for being very business oriented relatively strong in Islamic tradition
They have some very decorative
Architecture and traditional attire the Czar masong high love mostly in the southwest along the Niger River and they are known for being the more
westernized
Metropolitan people's that speak better French and typically work in the service sector
They are famous for the griot performers that tell stories in a musical fashion
They also have interesting traditional Hut's found close to the capital
The Touareg are sometimes called the blue people because of the indigo dyes they were on their clothing
They mostly reside in the more arid parts of the northern Sahara region and they even have their own
Ethnic flag related to the Berber in other countries. They have a unique millennia-old history of desert culture
Most of them are divided into castes and clans some have tribal markings men actually wear the veil
as women do not camels are commonly used for transport and you can pretty much tell if someone is
Tuareg if they are wearing the cross of agadez
Finally the Fulani or fula are the largest nomadic people group on earth and Nazir has about 2 million
They mostly inhabit the lower central regions of the country
They have a wide range of colorful festivals rich ceremonies and traditions
One of the most famous ones being the Guerra wall
festival of somewhat tubu tradition in the WA da Bay tribe men put on layers of makeup and do a
performance for the women that get to choose the winner these women often have
Permission from their husbands to sleep with the winners in an attempt to have beautiful children
Sometimes social structures across the world are just like that. Yeah NatGeo is actually kind of like obsessed with these people. Anyway, Anna. Thank you
Now of course
there are many other groups and subgroups of Nigeria with a plethora of unique languages and customs but those were kind of like the big
Four, otherwise, we cannot gloss over the fact that the country does have some social issues widely known already throughout the world
They only recently abolished slavery in 2003
Although the practice of caste based slavery and human trafficking still is an issue that the country faces for years
there has been a continuous struggle against Boko Haram which started in
Nigeria and it has a few factions in Neesha
And on top of that the overall poverty illiteracy
And political instability through a series of insurrection and coos you can see how all this kind of puts a struggle on them. Nonetheless
They are still trying trying to move forward with new modern economic sectors like tourism and resource extraction. It's kind of like
Totally fine come on in come visit have a good time
Hey, otherwise history in the quickest way I can put it prehistoric era trans-saharan trade route songhai empire
Islam enters meanwhile house of kingdoms in the south and kannan born new empire in the east
Mali empire takes over french expedition years this queen lady fights back french abolish slavery amongst the tore eggs france s full colonial rule
Independence first military regime uranium boom second republic third republic first Tuareg rebellion
Second military regime fourth republic and third military regime fifth republic second Tuareg rebellion
Sixth Republic seventh republic and here we are today. Yeah, three military regimes and seven Republic's and two Tuareg rebellion
I told you it's kind of intense otherwise some notable people from new share or of Nigerian descent might include people like full disclaimer
I'm gonna pronounce all these probably wrong al-fatih. Mr. Fattah Moussa adamu Ismail era guy Allison
Bambino Mustafa Allison a Abdul Razak issoufou Moussa mizu mamani a Tsonga
Yeah for a place with barely any cultivated land yet fast-growing population of over 20 million
You can tell there's something interesting about this place. Let's see how the outside world responds to the uniqueness now, shall we?
Now a share is the fastest growing country in Africa with the highest birth rate
This means that with limited resources at their disposal
Their dependence on foreign interaction is crucial to the very continuity of their nations future for one
Even though the colonial past holds a slight sting in the minds of Nigerians France is not only their largest import and export partner
Especially in the uranium sector, but also still has a cultural connection with Nazaire
They've adopted a lot of French cuisine French is the official language used for?
Intercommunication and many students choose to continue their studies in France
Americans are kind of like the back up default outsider when the French aren't concerned
They've been friendly since independence and even amidst the political drama they never cut ties in 2013
They signed an agreement to allow US bases to operate and test military equipment in their territory as well as help train the Najarian
Military the u.s
Also invests in their economy to some extent in general their West African neighbors are the closest friends
But it depends on who you ask if you ask the house a community
they'll probably say
Nigeria is their best friend as many of their house of cousins also live in Nigeria in addition Ghana and Benin give them access to
The ocean otherwise many in this are masong high community will probably say that Mali and Burkina
Faso are the best friends not only is business big between them
But they share the same history of empires challenges in modern society and to some extent culture
They also share many of the same people groups and they have a shared dependence on the Niger River
In conclusion when you look at Niger first, you see, you know, just sand in rocks
But then you see this incredibly fast growing population. They've gotten this far and kept the colorful traditions alive
Let's see what the future holds for them. Stay tuned
Nigeria is coming up next