In a region beset with violent strife, Islamist insurgency, Russia’s Wagner mercenaries and unstable military regimes, the Sahel state of Niger has become a focus of Western interest as a security and economic partner.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has visited recently, and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, is due to follow. The country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, has met Emmanuel Macron in Paris, and was one of the few notable non-Commonwealth African heads of state in London for King Charles’s coronation.
