Niger: Another African Disaster in the Making?

Thanks to Imnakoya at Grandiose Parlor blog for picking up on my post at Sudan Watch about the 150,000 children facing starvation in Niger.

Imnakoya is a Nigerian chap living in St Paul Minnesota. His insightful post entitled "Niger: Another African Disaster in the Making?" makes this suggestion:

For Starters...during a period of national catastrophe as this, it is morally wrong for any Niger national to eat three meals a day. How about donating at least one meal, or the equivalent, to the hungry? How about using a proportion of high-ranking government officials' salaries in buying food for the needy? How about President Mamadou Tanja of Niger yielding his african robe, cap, and his comfortable official mansion for the time being, and relocate to the feeding camps to help coordinate charity work? How about...African leaders striving to serve their people and not relying on foreign aids all the time?

I would like to expand on Imnakoya's last sentence by saying:

How about African people exhorting African leaders to strive to serve their people and not rely on foreign aid all the time?

Photo: L-R: Congo President Dennis Sassou Nguesso, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Niger President Maamodou Tandja attend the Donors' Conference for the Resuscitation and Sustainable Development of the Chad Basin. (AFP/Alexander Joe June 30, 2005)



Photo: A young infant suffering from severe malnutrition is treated at the Medecins Sans Frontieres center in Maradi. Niger is on the brink of a full-scale malnutrition crisis that threatens at least one quarter of its 12 million people.(AFP/Issouf Sanogo July 22, 2005)



Photo: Rural women who have carried their malnourished children for days across the Sahel desert in search of food rush into an emergency feeding center in the town of Guidan Roumdji, southern Niger, July 1, 2005. On a continent where a man's worth is often measured by his cattle, rivalry for the beasts and the degraded land they graze on is sparking lethal conflicts across Africa. Observers say the violence is rooted in increasingly parched soil which has been battered by overgrazing, erosion, population growth and global warming, exacerbating struggles among human communities with ancient and blood-stained histories. Photo by Finbarr O'reilly/Reuters July 22, 2005)



Photo: A picture taken July 1, 2005 shows the cereal market in the southwestern Niger town of Tahoua. Hundreds of peasant farmers are fleeing into northern Nigeria to escape a drought in the neighbouring west African desert state of Niger, officials said, warning that many would be turned back.(AFP/File/Natasha Burley July 4, 2005)



Photo: King Mohammed VI of Morocco (C) visits a makeshift hospital set up by the Moroccan Army to assist families in need of food aid in northeast Niger. UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland appealed for millions of dollars in aid from donors to tackle an 'acute humanitarian crisis' in the west African state of Niger where 2.5 million people, including 800,000 children, are facing famine (AFP July 21, 2005)

Tags: Niger Africa Morocco Obasanjo food aid aid workers UN starvation West Africa Joe Trippi Cereal Market Doctors Without Borders famine Grandiose Parlor NGO Northern Nigeria MSF