Three years of Tiani: violence events barely moved, deaths rose 82 percent

An ACLED expert comment published at the start of September set two equal windows side by side. From July 2023 to July 2026 — General Abdourahamane Tiani’s first three years — Niger recorded 1,490 political violence events and 5,836 fatalities. In the immediately preceding three years, the figures were 1,390 events and 3,199 fatalities. Same country, same length of window: incidents up marginally, deaths up 82 percent. ACLED’s own qualification matters and should travel with the number — Niger still experiences less intense violence than Mali or Burkina Faso, but faces a wider range of armed threats, with the Islamic State Sahel Province and JNIM both expanding into Dosso, southern Tahoua and, to a lesser degree, Agadez since early 2024, and increasingly fighting each other as well as the state.

The pressure is not only external. On 28 and 29 August a mutinous faction calling itself the Armed Forces for the Restoration of the Fatherland moved against Tiani in Niamey, with gunfire and explosions reported near Diori Hamani International Airport, the presidential palace and the ORTN broadcasting headquarters. State media said the attempt was repelled; the casualty figures circulating in public compilations are not sourced to any wire this desk has seen and are not used here. The Egmont Institute, in an analysis published around 7 October, notes that the defence ministry’s first communiqué that Saturday evening described a “mood movement” and pointedly avoided the word coup. Egmont also records that Niamey’s airport was attacked three times in 2026 — by IS-Sahel in January, by JNIM in June, and by the mutineers in August. Seven weeks on, there are no verified figures for arrests or trials.

The same government is not closing to Western capital; it is repricing it. According to a Rio Times explainer of 30 September — an aggregator, and every line needs a primary source — Canada’s Global Atomic said on 16 September that the US International Development Finance Corporation had conditionally approved up to $414 million for the Dasa uranium mine, and on 23 September Niger signed a new convention for the Madaouela project with Australian-listed Atomic Eagle, doubling the state’s stake to 40 percent. That sits alongside a three-year pattern of permits withdrawn, a mine nationalised, gold concessions cancelled and an oil licence left unrenewed.

Assessment: Two things to watch rather than two things to believe. The ACLED comparison is the strongest instrument on this desk precisely because it is like-for-like and comes from a specialist tracker rather than any government, and no amount of sovereignty rhetoric survives an 82 percent rise in deaths over a matched window. The DFC number is weaker: it reaches us through an aggregator and needs Global Atomic’s own release. If it stands, the uranium file and Ouagadougou’s reported health deal point the same way — these governments are auctioning access, not choosing a camp. The near-term tell is Moscow on 28 and 29 October. Lavrov told AES foreign ministers he expects their leaders; whether Goïta, Traoré and Tiani each judge it safe to leave the country for two days is a readable measure of what they fear at home.