Higher education leaders in Niger have raised concerns about how the military coup on 26 July 2023 may harm an already fragile higher education system.
Moctar Saïdou, the press secretary for the Union of Nigerien students has commented that Niger’s higher education sector was already struggling with insufficient accommodation, food, transport and care facilities for students, weak courses in public universities, a lack of lecturers and failures to make scholarship payments and release state social assistance for students. He states ‘the coup has made the situation more worrying’.