Niamey
– The novel coronavirus caused the death of Niger’s minister of employment and
labour, Mohamed Ben Omar, public television announced on Monday.
The minister’s Social Democratic
Party (PSD) reported Ben Omar, 55, had died on Sunday at the main hospital in
the capital Niamey, but did not list the cause.
“Alas, it is this terrible
disease which took the life of minister Mohamed Ben Omar,” public
television Tele Sahel reported.
Before announcing the news, the
channel broadcast a recent message from the minister urging workers to protect
themselves from the coronavirus.
“Covid-19 is a reality, it’s
not a state of mind. It’s deadly. It kills. It spreads at the speed of
light,” Mohamed Ben Omar told the station.
“We must get a grip of
ourselves in order to say ‘stop this virus’. It is discipline alone that will
be the weapon to destroy this virus,” he said.
‘Heavy heart’
President Mahamadou Issoufou said
earlier he had learned the news of his death with a “heavy heart”.
Ben Omar, born 1 January 1965, in
the south-central town of Tesker, had led the PSD, which is allied with
Issoufou’s Party for Democracy and Socialism.
Issoufou’s labour minister since
2017, Ben Omar began his political life in 1999 under president Mamadou Tandja,
serving in parliament or in various ministerial roles in the impoverished Sahel
nation.
Ben Omar strongly supported a
constitutional amendment that allowed Tandja to prolong his second term by
three years in 2009, but a military junta overthrew Tandja the following
February.
Before he created the PSD, Ben
Omar was part of the Rally for Democracy and Progress, the party of Tandja’s
predecessor Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, who was assassinated in 1999 by members of
his own bodyguard.
Niger has recorded 755 infections
of the novel coronavirus, with 37 deaths.
The country has already declared
a state of emergency as well as closed its borders, places of worship and
schools. It has also cut off the capital from the rest of the country.
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