In Niger, the quarrel over the Commandement des Forces de Protection et de Développement (CFPD) has stopped being an internal matter between senior officers. Its effects are already landing on the national economy, on the companies that finance the system and, ultimately, on ordinary households. The reason is simple: 1.8 billion FCFA is promised every month to run a force meant to guard the country’s most valuable assets — mines, oil installations, pipelines and trade corridors. General Salifou Mody, CNSP leader Abdourahamane Tiani and former finance minister and prime minister Lamine Zeine are the three men at the heart of the dispute, and whichever of them wins will decide who pays, who collects and who is left watching.
Why a security decree turned into an economic fight for Niger
On 9 May 2024, General Abdourahamane Tiani signed decree n°2024-309/P/CNSP/MDN, the text that brought the Commandement des Forces de Protection et de Développement into existence. The stated purpose is protective: the force is designed to secure the country’s strategic installations, including mining and petroleum sites, corridors and pipelines. The defence ministry confirms that this structure was created to guard those sites and arteries, while a recruitment drive of 10,000 young people in 2024 simultaneously expanded the ranks of the Nigerien armed forces.
Two objectives therefore run side by side — a security imperative and the steady growth of the military apparatus. But what began as a protection plan quickly became an economic question, because defending assets costs money, and that money has to come from somewhere.
Article 28: the 12,000 FCFA daily premium that swells into billions
Everything hinges on a single provision. Article 28 of the decree sets a Prime Unique d’Astreinte (PUA) of at least 12,000 FCFA per man per day, and at the same time obliges the companies covered by the protection scheme to contribute financially to it. The arithmetic for a force of 5,000 men is striking:
- Per day: 5,000 men × 12,000 FCFA = 60 million FCFA
- Per month (30 days): 1.8 billion FCFA
- Per year: 21.9 billion FCFA
From 60 million a day to 21.9 billion a year
These figures are not theoretical. They are the financial reality of the system, visible in the contracts signed with businesses, in the payments already made and in the troops already deployed. For the companies concerned, the contribution is a direct operating cost. For the state, it is a flow of money that sits outside the classic budget circuit — which is precisely why it has become the focal point of the confrontation inside the regime.
The financial blockade that left a 21.9 billion FCFA machine idle
General Salifou Mody pushed hard for the CFPD to be implemented, and General Tiani signed the decree under direct pressure from his own defence minister. Then the sequence reversed. Once the text was signed, the CNSP leader instructed the finance minister, Lamine Zeine, to freeze the financial provisions of the CFPD. The result is a structure that legally exists but has been stripped of the means to operate — a political blockage imposed directly on Mody’s flagship project.
Mody against Zeine: the fallout on Niger’s public finances
Lamine Zeine became the central point of friction. The finance ministry deliberately blocked the budgetary translation of the military scheme, and the consequences spread well beyond a single dossier, because a stalled financing mechanism also stalls the spending it was meant to trigger.
The January 2026 reshuffle and what it changed
By January 2026, Lamine Zeine was holding two jobs at once, combining the office of prime minister with that of minister of the economy and finance, while Salifou Mody served as minister of state for defence. Mody secured the removal of the finance portfolio from Zeine, then forced him out of the premiership altogether. The conflict over the CFPD had destroyed the trust between the pillars of the regime — and reshaped the top of the state apparatus in the process.
The recomposition of power ran through Zeine’s departure. General Mody took over the government and imposed a single condition: to hold the posts of prime minister and defence minister simultaneously. Political, military and administrative leverage are now concentrated in the same pair of hands.
Damolleydi: a mobilisation drained of its own momentum
With the CFPD frozen, the regime launched the general mobilisation known as Damolleydi, intended to bring volunteers and existing structures into the security effort. General Mody was placed at the head of the committee steering it, sidelining General Mohamed Toumba, the interior minister. Yet the same man who now leads the initiative has deliberately slowed its rollout. Damolleydi has lost visibility, overtaken by autonomous local structures operating outside the central framework.
The three levers that decide who really benefits
The whole affair locks the state apparatus around three axes:
- Command: control over the personnel assigned to strategic sites
- Missions: the power to designate which infrastructure is protected and in what order of priority
- Money: oversight of the contributing companies and management of the financial flows they generate
People, missions and money
Article 28 of the decree governs the financial mechanism behind the 1.8 billion FCFA paid out monthly. Whoever controls that article controls the entire chain, from the list of companies required to pay to the units that receive the premium.
What the deadlock means for citizens, businesses and investors
For mining and oil operators, the uncertainty is tangible: contributions are demanded, but the protective structure they finance is not fully operational, leaving installations and corridors in an ambiguous security position. For the public purse, 21.9 billion FCFA a year is a substantial sum circulating through a channel that the finance ministry itself tried to shut down. For ordinary Nigeriens, the practical effect is a state that spends its energy arbitrating an internal rivalry rather than delivering the protection its economy depends on.
The bottom line: an economy caught inside an internal quarrel
The 1.8 billion FCFA is the direct financial stake of the CFPD, and it confirms how political the whole arrangement has become, sitting at the crossroads of strategic resources, contributing companies and the chain of command. Beyond the rivalry between Tiani, Mody and Zeine, the winner of this confrontation gains exclusive control over Niger’s people, missions and resources. Behind the personal quarrels, what is really being locked down is total command of the state apparatus — and the economic cost of that lockdown is shouldered by everyone else.
