Word: diori
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...African states and declared that several of the six nations of the Sahelian strip just beneath the Sahara could literally disappear as a result of the devastation spread by a six-year dry spell. Last week, in landlocked Niger, a military coup toppled the democratic government that President Hamani Diori, 57, had conscientiously administered since he led his people to independence from France in 1960. Though the coup was largely bloodless, three people were reported killed, including Diori's wife, who was shot while she was said to be resisting arrest at the Presidential Palace...
...failures can be traced to the shortcomings of its leaders. As in most new countries, the first Presidents and Premiers were primarily freedom fighters, with scant experience in statecraft. Still, few nations have leaders more dedicated or imaginative than Tanzania's Nyerere, Niger's Hamani Diori and Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda. Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, like Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, is an elder statesman who has imposed a degree of stability on his heterogeneous country. Of the soldiers who now rule nine African nations, at least two-Nigeria's Yakubu Gowon...
...office suites are constructed with two offices of equal size, one for the minister, the other for his French "seconder." In Niger, as elsewhere, students in the French-controlled schools are required to study the same subjects at the same levels of proficiency as children in Paris. Complains President Diori: "Our schools are programmed for the one student who will go on to university, not for the 999 who should be studying farming...
...leading export) has dropped from $18.16 per 100 Ibs. in 1963 to $6.64 last August. Statistics about Africa are woefully inadequate; economists differ over whether Nigeria's per-capita income is $120 or $80. But the figures underscore the fact that Africa is desperately poor. "Our society," says Diori, "has not yet found the means to guarantee our citizens the minimum needs of life...
Real progress will depend on many complex factors: more efficient farm tools, better nourishment, the conquest of debilitating disease. Most important may be education. As Niger's eloquent President Diori puts it: "What's left after ten years of independence? The need to learn, and the need to be prudent...