Considerable demonstrate suggests that about 600,000 years ago, humans colonised what has since become the desolate Sahara of northern Niger. Long before the reached of French determine and control in the area, Niger was an valuable economic crossroads, and the empires of Songhai, Mali, Gao, Kanem, and Bornu, as well as a number of Hausa states, claimed control over portions of the area. During recent centuries, the nomadic Tuareg formed large confederations, pushed southward, and, siding with various Hausa states, clashed with the Fulani Empire of Sokoto, which had gained control of much of the Hausa territory in the late 18th century.

In the culmination of an initiative started under the 1991 national conference, the government signed peace accords in April 1995 with all Tuareg and Toubou groups that had been in rebellion since 1990, claiming they deficiencyed attention and resources from the central government. The government agreed to absorb some former rebels in the military and, with French assistance, help others return to a productive civilian life. In April 1999, Bare was beaten in a coup led by Maj. Daouda Mallam Wanke, who accomplished a transitional National Reconciliation Council to oversee the drafting of a constitution for a Fifth Republic with a French style semi-presidential system. In votes that international observers found to be generally free and fair, the Nigerien electorate approved the new constitution in July 1999 and held legislative and presidential elections in October and November 1999. Heading a MNSD/CDS coalition, Mamadou Tandja won the presidency.