Niger Junta Appoints Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as New Prime Minister

On Monday, the military leaders appointed former finance minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as the new prime minister in a statement read out on national television.

Zeine held the position of cabinet director in 2001, then finance minister in 2002 under former president Mamadou Tandja. He served as finance minister until Tandja was overthrown in a coup d'état in 2010.

In Monday’s statement, Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane also named Lieutenant-Colonel Habibou Assoumane as Niger’s new commander of the presidential guard.

As soon as he came to power, former Nigerien president Mamadou Tandja appointed Zeine cabinet director in 2001, then finance minister in 2002, to turn around a chaotic economic and financial situation.

Born in 1965 in Zinder (south), the country's second most populous town, he joined the Ministry of Economy and Finance in 1991 after studying at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) in Niamey. He is also a graduate of the Centre d'études financières, économiques et bancaires in Marseille and Paris-I.