Niger: death of the Minister of Labor

Niger's Minister of Employment and Labor Mohamed Ben Omar died on Sunday at the age of 55 in Niamey, his party announced without giving the causes of his death.

"We inform you of the death of the president of our party, Mohamed Ben Omar, at 4 p.m. local time at the national reference hospital in Niamey," said a statement from the party of the deceased published on whatsapp. "It is with a touched heart that I have just learned this day the reminder to God of the Minister of Employment Mohamed Ben Omar," tweeted Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou.

Mohamed Ben Omar, born in 1965 in Tesker, in the region of Zinder (center-south), led the Social Democratic Party (PSD), an allied formation of the presidential movement, which he had created in 2015.

Ben Omar has been a deputy and minister several times since 1999, notably under the regime of Mamadou Tandja (1999 to 2010) and the current head of state Mahamadou Issoufou in office since 2011. He had been an ardent defender of the constitutional amendment who had allowed Mamadou Tandja to extend his second term by three years in 2009, but he had been overthrown by a military junta a few months later in February 2010.

Before creating the PSD, Mohamed Ben Omar campaigned in the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), the party of President-General Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara assassinated in 1999.