La Nigérienne
"La Nigérienne" is the national anthem of Niger. The lyrics are by Maurice Albert Thiriet. Robert Jacquet and Nicolas Abel François Frionnet wrote the music. It was adopted as Niger's anthem in 1961.
Niger River
The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river, a boomerang shape that baffled geographers for two centuries. Its source is just 240 km (150 mi) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs directly away from the sea into the Sahara Desert, then takes a sharp right turn near the ancient city of Timbuktu (Tombouctou) and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.