Thousands protest in Niger against power, food woes

By Abdoulaye Massalatchi

NIAMEY, July 10 (Reuters) - Around 30,000 people marched through Niger's capital Niamey on Thursday to protest against the high cost of living and electricity blackouts caused by disruptions in power supplies from neighbouring Nigeria.

It was one of the biggest public protests seen in recent years in the landlocked Sahel state, which is a leading world exporter of uranium but, like many African nations, has suffered the squeeze of sharp increases in oil and food prices.

Witnesses said the protesters shouted slogans complaining about the high cost of basic food products and about frequent daily power outages which have been affecting Niamey and other cities in the former French colony over the last two months.

Niger's national electricity company NIGELEC imports 90 percent of its needs from neighbouring Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producer. It has recently suffered serious disruptions in these supplies, causing the blackouts.

"Niger is in danger and the authorities must snap out of their indifference towards NIGELEC's catastrophic situation and the high cost of living," said Badje Hima, coordinator of the Citizens' Convergence coalition which organised the march.

Hima said it made no sense for Niger, a top supplier to the world of the nuclear reactor fuel uranium, to be suffering power shortages. The coalition was demanding that the government negotiate the acquisition of a nuclear power plant for the country, so it could have an independent supply of energy.

In addition to power and food cost problems, Niger's government is also faced with a rebellion by Tuareg-led rebels in the uranium-producing northern Agadez region.

These nomadic insurgents, grouped in the rebel Niger Justice Movement (MNJ), have since last year attacked army posts and convoys, killed at least 70 government troops and briefly abducted employees of uranium companies from France and China.