Background
He was born in 1912, at Kaya in the neighbouring state of Upper Volta.
He was born in 1912, at Kaya in the neighbouring state of Upper Volta.
Educated locally, then at the William Ponty School, Dakar, Senegal, and at the French teachers’ training college at Saint Cloud, France.
He returned to become headmaster at Filingue School, where President Diori had also been headmaster. He was a teacher in Niamey from 1944 to 1946. It was at this time that he got to know Diori and became a party activist on the formation of the Niger Progressive Party (PPN) as a wing of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in 1946. He became president and director-general of Air Niger, the local airline, and an administrator of Air Afrique, the inter-territorial airline, formed by the French-speaking states.
When the PPN came to power in December 1958, he was appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications until November 1965, when he was switched to Public Works, Mines, Transport and Urban Development. A solid administrator, he was promoted to Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry in January 1970. He took over the ministry at an opportune moment with the economy reviving after bad droughts and a collapse in groundnut prices. The uranium project by the SOMAIR consortium in the Arlit Mountains finally got going during his term of office. In the major reshuffle of August 1972 he made way for a new minister, Amadou Isaka, and took over the Defence portfolio.