- At a time when the international community is attempting to restore constitutional order, the military coup leaders in Niger announced the selection of Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as prime minister on Monday evening in a statement read out on national television.
- Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane announced that Mr. (Ali Mahaman) Lamine Zeine had been chosen Prime Minister.
- In an effort to stabilize the country’s tumultuous economic and financial position, former president Mamadou Tandja named Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine cabinet director in 2001 and subsequently finance minister in 2002. In a nation where the history is marked by the usurpation of power by force, this was a circumstance where the military took over after the assassination of General and President Ibrahim Baré Manassara in 1999.
- Mr. Zeine served as finance minister from 2008 until General Salou Djibo overthrew Mamadou Tandja in a coup d’état in 2010, just before Mahamadou Issoufou, Mohamed Bazoum’s predecessor, won the presidential election on July 26.
- A trained economist, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine served as the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) resident representative in Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Chad.
- He was born in 1965 in Zinder (South), the second-most populated town in the nation, and after completing his studies at the École nationale d’administration (ENA) in Niamey, he joined the Ministry of Economics and Finance in 1991. He also holds a degree from the Centre d’études financières, économiques et bancaires in Paris-I and Marseille.
- The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gave the reigning military an ultimatum to reinstate President Mohamed Bazoum in office the day before to these appointments. If this requirement was not complied with, the organization did not rule out using force.
