Since it took control over the country in a July 2023 coup, Niger’s military junta has been cutting ties with France and forging stronger ones with fellow juntas in Burkina Faso and Mali. One example of this shift is Tuesday’s rebranding of a major avenue in Niamey after Djibo Bakary – a key figure in Niger’s struggle for independence.
Niger bid goodbye to the Avenue Charles de Gaulle on Tuesday as its ruling junta renamed several historic sites in the capital Niamey which previously bore references to old colonial master France.
Military officials attend a ceremony in Niamey on October 15, 2024 where the the portrait of French commander and explorer Parfait-Louis Monteil that was engraved for decades in a stone monument, has been replaced by a plaque bearing the image of Thomas Sankara, the former president of neighboring Burkina Faso who was killed in a coup in 1987. – The military regime in power in Niger renamed several historic places in the capital Niamey on October 15, 2024, which until now had names that evoked France, the former colonial power on which they turned their backs. (Photo by BOUREIMA HAMA / AFP)
“Most of our avenues, boulevards and streets… bear names that are simply reminders of the suffering and bullying our people endured during the ordeal of colonisation,” said Major Colonel Abdramane Amadou, Minister for Youth and a junta spokesman.
“The avenue which once bore the name of General Charles de Gaulle is henceforth christened ‘Avenue Djibo Bakary’,” Amadou added. A socialist politician who died in 1998, Bakary was a key figure in the struggle for Niger’s independence, which it obtained in 1960.
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