In Niger, one finds them in the various maintenance or metal carpentry workshops. They are young boys in or out of school, from the countries of the sub-region, whose parents sent them to learn a trade, with the hope that they acquire a skill to enter the working life and help support the family back home.

Zannou Seidettin Lavenir, now 50 years old, was one  of such young people. But the future that Niamey had in store for him is far from his parents’ vision. Sent to Niger to live with one of his father’s friends to learn metal carpentry, Zanou is now a sound technician in a media outlet. Zanou Seidettin Lavenir shares his story with Dialogue Migration.

Zannou Seidettin Lavenir, is a sound technician at Bonferey Press Group in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Originally from Benin, Zannou arrived in Niger at the age of 12 to learn metal carpentry from a friend of his father.

Zannou Seidettin had a difficult childhood. But his fate changed in 1992 when he joined the Centre de Formation et de Promotion Musicale CFPM/TAYA where he embraced the profession of sound technician.

In the studio of the Radio and Television Bonferey Press Group, the technician confides in Dialogue Migration by narrating a few chapters of his life.  

He says he joined primary school in 1977. He dropped out of school in CM1 (Grade 5). What for? We won’t answer that question.

12 March 1985, beginning of a new life in Niger

“Very young and having left school very early, my father entrusted me to one of his friends who lives in Niamey, Niger,” he says. This is the beginning of the adventure for the young boy he was.

He says that it was around noon that they arrived in Niamey, on March 12, 1985.  “My father’s ambition,” he recalls, when entrusting me to his friend, “is that I can learn a trade, in this case metal carpentry.” This is also the work of his father’s friend in the city of Niamey. 

Young Zanou spent seven years at home. However, he did not spend these years learning carpentry as his father wanted; he rather spent them in the streets of Niamey selling peanut bags for his guardian’s wife; an activity that is far from that of carpenter apprentice.

Centre de Formation et de Promotion Musicale CFPM/TAYA, my second chance school

However, in 1992, everything changed for my tutor because his business no longer worked; he finally decided to return to Benin. As if fate was determined to make the young boy remain in Niger, it was during this same period that he enrolled as a musician student at the CFPM/TAYA Music Training and Promotion Center in Niamey. “As a student, I learned music and how to play instruments like trumpet, saxophone, piano etc….” he says.

Also in 1992, the CFPM/TAYA launched a training course for sound technicians with the support of the Japanese Cooperation. Luckily, he was the only one selected among the three students shortlisted.

He attended the training from 1992 to 1996. An allowance to cover his expenses made life somehow easier for him. Thoughtfully, he confides: “I will never forget my teacher; his name is Mr. Hiroshi Suzumura. He’s a Japanese volunteer and sound engineer.”

Zanou obtained his certificate of completion, just when the center was facing a funding problem, before closing its doors the same year.

Nevertheless, he manages to make ends meet by djing in the bars. In a way, he had no choice, because he was married and already a father of two children.

It is in his wanderings that he meets the late Daouda Malam Amadou aka David KO, a star DJ of the capital. “It was he who asked me to submit an application to Radio Anfani, the first private radio station that had just opened its doors,” he says.

He submits, a first time. But, to his surprise, he finds his letter of request in the secretary’s garbage can, when he returns to inquire about the progress of his file. Undeterred, he submitted a second time. It was the right one. “It was the Director General himself, the late Gremah Koura, who called me and made me sign a contract,” he said. This is how he began his career as a sound technician at Radio Anfani on March 31, 1997.

He served this station for 20 years. In 2017, he signed a new contract with the Bonferey Radio and Television Group (another private media company based in Niamey).

“Today, I lead my life in Niamey with my family. I have a wife and seven wonderful children, including five daughters. I thank the Lord, because despite the suffering I endured when I arrived in Niger, I am today a happy father with his family, thanks to the help of several people who have always considered me a member of their families”.

A short story, which summarizes his beginnings in Niger and the happy turn that took place afterwards.