Bala Arabé

Chaweye Bala Arabe (* 25. July 1925 in Niamey , † 1991 ; also Balla-Arabe ) was a Nigerien officers and politicians .

Life

Bala Arabé attended the regional school in Zinder . He joined the French armed forces in 1944 . Niger was a colony of France at that time . Arabé completed military training in Saint-Louis and served in Madagascar , the Sahara , Algeria and Cotonou from 1946 to 1958 . He also completed training at the Infantry School in Saint-Maixent-l'École in 1956 . He reached the rank of lieutenant in 1958 .

With Niger's independence in 1960, Bala Arabé was incorporated into the new Nigerien armed forces . He was one of six local soldiers who had reached the rank of officer by then . The other Nigerien officers were Amadou Diallo, Henri Dupuis-Yacouba , Seyni Kountché , Demba Maïnassara and Moussa Tondi . In 1961, Arabé was promoted to captain . As the successor to Demba Maïnassara, he became Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in 1969. In 1973, Seyni Kountché replaced him in this function. Instead, Arabé became President Hamani Diori's personal chief of staff .

Seyni Kountché deposed Hamani Diori in a military coup in 1974 and became the new head of state and chairman of the Supreme Military Council regime . Bala Arabé, his closeness to former President Diori was fatal. He was released from the armed forces and held in a military camp in N'Guigmi until 1978 . He was then mostly under house arrest in his hometown of Maradi for many years .

After Seyni Kountché's death in 1987, Arabé was rehabilitated. In the parliamentary elections of 1989 he was elected to the National Assembly for Maradi of the unity party National Development Society's Movement . Until its dissolution in 1991, he was second deputy speaker of parliament. He then served as a veteran representative in the 1991 National Conference preparing Niger's transition to a multi-party system . At the end of the National Conference he died.

Bala Arabé was married and had three children.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Raph Uwachue (Ed.): Africa Who's Who . Africa Books, London 1991, ISBN 0-903274-17-5 , pp. 279 .
2. ^ ^{A b} Abdourahmane Idrissa, Samuel Decalo: Historical Dictionary of Niger . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6094-0 , pp. 87 .
3. ^ Aliou Mahamane: La naissance de l'armée nationale au Niger, 1961–1974 . In: Idrissa Kimba (ed.): Armée et politique au Niger . Codesria, Dakar 2008, ISBN 2-86978-216-0 , p. 62 .
4. ↑ Les Chefs d'Etat-major des Armées de 1960 à 2015. (No longer available online.) Ministère de la Défense du Niger, archived from the original on September 17, 2017 ; Retrieved November 18, 2017 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.