Financial Transparency Coalition

For many developing countries, natural resource wealth offers a potential way out of persistant poverty. There are few places in the world where this is as true as Niger, a landlocked country with a per-capita GDP of just US$400. The country has substantial mining exports and potential oil reserves, but an opaque financial system empowers a corrupt and increasingly autocratic regime, and little wealth from natural resources has reached the people on the ground. Niger ranks 186th out of 187 countries on the UN Human Development Index.

Transparency International has released the following release highlighting their concern about the arrest of anti-corruption leader Wada Maman in Niger:

Transparency International (TI) is seriously concerned about the arrest in Niger, of Wada Maman, Board Member and Secretary General of TI chapter, the Association Nigérienne de Lutte contre la Corruption (ANLC).

The arrest, on Saturday 22 August, took place as Maman made his way across the Nigerien capital, Niamey. He was travelling from his home to the home of another ANLC member and transferring from a minibus-taxi to another taxi when members...