Niger’s sovereignty paradox: can the junta’s UN rhetoric survive the SOMAÏR and SONIDEP collapse?

A defining dilemma for Niger’s military rulers

What happens when a regime’s most powerful narrative collides with the cold arithmetic of its own industrial failures? That is the question hanging over Niger after Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine once again took to the podium of the 81st United Nations General Assembly to deliver the junta’s familiar sovereignty sermon. Before an audience of international envoys, the civilian face of the CNSP repeated the well-worn slogans: reclaiming national resources, economic independence, and a clean break from neocolonialism.

But once the cameras stopped rolling, the numbers told a starkly different story. Under General Abdourahamane Tiani and his government, Niger’s flagship state companies have slid into chaos. Behind the patriotic veneer, the industrial record of SOMAÏR and SONIDEP points to a financial disaster that is already imposing a heavy toll on ordinary Nigeriens.

SOMAÏR: from uranium pride to production freefall

For decades, uranium from Arlit fueled a narrative of grievance and unrealized potential. When the junta seized operational control of the Société des mines de l’Aïr (SOMAÏR) and pushed out its long-standing French partner Orano, Tiani and his circle promised a windfall for the nation.

The outcome on the ground has been catastrophic: uranium output has collapsed by roughly 80 percent since the new authorities took over. The reasons are both structural and self-inflicted.

• Broken supply chains: The inability to bring in essential chemical reagents such as sulfuric acid, combined with logistical blockages at the borders, has paralyzed the Arlit site.
• Commercial deadlock: Without reliable distribution networks or trustworthy export certificates, tons of uranium concentrate—yellowcake—sit unsold on site.
• Immediate social fallout: Local subcontractors go unpaid, jobs vanish, and the tax revenue that was supposed to fund hospitals and schools has turned into a mirage.

Changing the flag on a factory gate does not make its machines run. In mining engineering, slogans are no substitute for technical expertise and disciplined management.

The SONIDEP black hole: 25 billion FCFA and counting

If uranium management looks like a shipwreck, the oil file edges toward a state scandal. The Société nigérienne des produits pétroliers (SONIDEP), elevated by the CNSP to the heart of its crude marketing strategy—including the new giant pipeline to Benin’s coast—was supposed to be the financial engine of this new era.

Instead, internal balance sheets and progress reports suggest SONIDEP is nursing a loss estimated at more than 25 billion CFA francs.

That figure alone captures the failure of the military management model: on one side, SOMAÏR’s output collapses by nearly 80 percent, destroying the value added of the uranium sector; on the other, SONIDEP, meant to harvest the fruits of national oil, racks up a record deficit of 25 billion FCFA instead of filling state coffers. Together, these two public jewels embody a system of evaporating public resources under the cover of illusory nationalism.

How does a national company holding a monopoly on fuel distribution—in a country supposedly on track to become a major oil exporter—manage to accumulate such a financial abyss? The absence of certified accounting statements and the silence from the Ministry of Petroleum feed every suspicion: poor management, dubious negotiated contracts, improvised intermediaries, and inflated invoices.

Sovereignty as a shield for incompetence

Faced with this industrial rout, the reflex of the Tiani-Zeine tandem is well rehearsed: blame ECOWAS, international sanctions, the “invisible hand of imperialism,” or the mismanagement of previous regimes.

At some point, the leaders led by Abdourahamane Tiani must answer to their people:

1. Where are the audit reports promised with great fanfare after the July 2023 coup?
2. How are the sale contracts for Nigerien oil and uranium actually negotiated?
3. What exactly are the rare revenues collected by the Treasury used for, if the major state companies are going bankrupt?

True sovereignty is measured by concrete actions and results: public companies that create value, salaries paid on time, investment in basic services, and full transparency on public finances.

By using the patriotic argument to mask the failures of SOMAÏR and SONIDEP, the CNSP distorts the very meaning of the word sovereignty. The Nigerien people cannot eat speeches delivered at the UN—they need an economy that works.

By Claire Mvondo — Security and State Policy Expert