Oumarou Garba Youssoufou

Oumarou Garba Youssoufou (born March 15, 1940 in Oungouar Roumdji near Maradi , † October 24, 2007 in Abidjan ; also Oumarou Garba Issoufou ) was a Nigerien diplomat and politician.

Life

Oumarou Garba Youssoufou belonged to the Christian minority of Niger. At the age of eight he moved to live with his uncle, a pastor, in Kano , Nigeria , where he received his school education. He returned to Niger in 1960 and worked as an English translator for President Hamani Diori's cabinet . In 1962 Youssoufou went to Paris to study French with the Alliance française . He fell ill with tuberculosis and spent six months in a sanatorium in the French Alps. After his release, he completed diplomatic training in Switzerland. In 1965 he married Rahila Ganya, with whom he had seven children. Youssoufou worked for the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC from 1967 to 1973. He was a founding member of the Africare aid organization in 1970 and obtained a bachelor's degree in business administration from American University in 1972 . Back in Niger, he worked for the Nigerian-Nigerian Commission for a year.

After Hamani Diori was overthrown and Seyni Kountché seized power , Oumarou Garba Youssoufou was appointed ambassador. As such, he represented Niger in nine states, including Ethiopia and Nigeria. In 1980 Youssoufou became the Organization for African Unity Ambassador to the United Nations . He held this office for ten years. After retiring from civil service, he was involved in the democratic upheaval in Niger in the early 1990s. He was a participant in the National Conference of 1991. He was involved in leading positions in the founding of the Nigerien Progress Party (PPN-RDA), the former unity party under Hamani Diori, of which he became chairman in 1992. In the presidential election of 1993 he was the candidate of the PPN-RDA and was sixth of eight candidates with 1.99 percent of the vote. In 1995 he became party leader of the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDR-Mutunci), a small party that failed to make it into the National Assembly in the 1995 parliamentary elections . Youssoufou spent the last years of his life in Nigeria's capital Abuja .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Oumarou Garba Youssoufou. (PDF) Africare, archived from the original on September 20, 2010 ; accessed on January 4, 2018 (French). 
2. ^ Elections in Niger . African Elections Database, published October 30, 2011, accessed October 13, 2012.
3. ^ Parti Progressiste Nigérien . In: Abdourahmane Idrissa and Samuel Decalo: Historical Dictionary of Niger . 4th ed., Scarecrow, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6094-0