Djibo Bakary
Djibo Bakary (* 1922 in Soudouré ; † April 16, 1998 in Niamey ) was a socialist Nigerien politician. In 1957 he put together the first government of what was then the French overseas territory of Niger and was considered an advocate for the country's rapid independence from France.
Political activity
Bakary is considered an important figure in Niger's striving for independence. He was first general secretary of the Nigerien Progress Party (PPN-RDA). He was expelled from the party when he opposed the break between the parent African Democratic Rally (RDA) and the French Communist Party . Bakary then founded the left Nigerian Democratic Union (UDN) in 1954 . In 1956 he was elected mayor of the capital Niamey . The UDN merged with the conservative Nigerien Action Bloc (BNA) to form the Nigerien section of the African Socialist Movement (MSA), which won the elections for the Territorial Assembly in 1957 . Bakary became deputy head of government.
Bakary's party gave itself the name Sawaba at that time , which means something like "freedom" or "independence". When the Sawaba government lost the constitutional referendum of 1958 on full immediate independence of Niger - 78 percent of voters voted against it - Bakary resigned in 1958. The new elections for the Territorial Assembly in 1958 brought the conservative Hamani Diori (PPN-RDA) into office, who had the Sawaba banned. Bakary went into exile in Mali and later in Ghana , where he could count on the support of President Kwame Nkrumah .
Sawaba fighters trained in Ghana invaded Niger with Ghanaian soldiers in the mid-1960s and tried to overthrow Diori, who, however, was able to defeat the invaders with French arms.
Fourteen years later, the new military government under Seyni Kountché Bakary allowed him to return to Niger in 1974 if he came as a private individual and not as a politician. Bakary accepted, but - once in the country - resumed his political activities. In 1975 an attempt at overthrow by military sympathizers with the Sawaba failed. The Kountché government took this as an opportunity to arrest Bakary until 1980. In the course of the democratization process under Ali Saibou in 1991, Bakary founded a new party, the Union of People's Forces for Democracy and Progress (UDFP-Sawaba). He ran for the last time in the presidential elections in 1993 , but only came in last with 1.68%.
literature
- Joseph Roger de Benoist: You parti progressiste nigérien au Sawaba. Djibo Bakary parle . In: Politique africaine . No. 38 , 1990, pp. 97–110 ( politique-africaine.com [PDF]).
- Finn Fuglestad : Djibo Bakary, the French, and the Referendum of 1958 in Niger . In: Journal of African History . tape 14 , no. 2 , 1973, p. 313-330 .
- Mahamane Mallam Issa: Djibo Bakary et Abdoulaye Mamani: intellectuels et hommes politiques . In: Kimba Idrissa (ed.): Niger. Les intellectuels, l'État et la société . CODESRIA, Dakar 2016, ISBN 978-2-86978-708-7 , pp. 155-186 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elizabeth Schmidt: Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946-1958 . Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 2007, ISBN 978-0-8214-1763-8 , pp. 136-137.
- ↑ Edmond Séré de Rivières: Histoire du Niger . Berger-Levrault, Paris 1965, p. 271.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bakary, Djibo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | socialist Nigerien politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Soudouré |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 16, 1998 |
| Place of death | Niamey |