“Even if you gave the population there the land, they do not have the means to develop it, nor does the state,” said Abou Sow, the executive director of Office du Niger.

尼日尔办公室的主任Sow说：“即使你把这里的土地给人民，他们也没有办法开发这里的土地，国家也没有办法。”

youdao

Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state, is the urban hub of the Niger Delta, where the creeks contain the bulk of Nigeria's vast oil and gas reserves, the biggest in Africa.

作为河州首府，哈科特港位于尼日利亚三角洲的中心。此地的河流孕润着尼日利亚丰富的油气储备——这也是非洲最大的油气储备。

youdao

In Mali, about three million acres along the Niger River and its inland delta are controlled by a state-run trust called the Office du Niger.

在马利，尼日尔河以及三角洲附近的大约三百万英亩的土地已经被一个国立公司控制。

youdao

Last month, the US and Niger struck an agreement on the status of US forces as the two nations "define precisely what kind of military presence we may have in Niger in the future", a spokeswoman for the US state department said.

BBC: Mali conflict: US deploys 100 troops to neighbour Niger

Wilson wrote that he told the CIA he could find no evidence to prove the Iraq-Niger connection nearly a year before President Bush referred to it in his 2003 State of the Union as part of the rationale for war with Iraq.

CNN: Sources: FBI quizzes Wilson, Novak

The three semi-desert states, which border Niger, Chad and Cameroon, are roughly the size of England or the US state of Illinois but have a population of just 10 million.

BBC: Boko Haram crisis: Nigeria air raids target militants