Clémence Aïssa Baré

Biography Clémence Aïssa Baré, a physician, specializes in parasitology and HIV/AIDS treatments. Following the coup, Mainassara ruled Niger from 1996 to 1999, with his wife, Clémence Aïssa Baré, assuming the role of the country's first lady.

Since 1999, former First Lady Clémence Aïssa Baré and her children have campaigned for the prosecution of those individuals responsible for her husband's murder. Successive Nigerien governments have declined to arrest or prosecute anyone suspected of Maïnassara's murder, citing the 1999 blanket immunity for "perpetrators, co-perpetrators and accomplices" connected to the 1999 coup d'état. A request to repeal the amnesty law was rejected by the National Assembly in April 2015.

Baré and other families affected by the 1999 coup filed several legal applications and suits in Niger, but received no restitution. She turned to the ECOWAS Court in Abuja, citing a similar investigation into the October 1987 assassination of President Thomas Sankara in neighboring Burkina Faso. In October 2015, the ECOWAS Court ordered the Nigerien government to pay 435 million CFA francs in compensation to Clémence Aïssa Baré and her family for the murder of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara and violating the late president's right to life.