Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Mamadou Tandja (born 1938) is a Nigerien politician who was President of Niger from 1999 to 2010. He was President of the National Movement of the Development Society (MNSD) from 1991 to 1999 and unsuccessfully ran as the MNSD's presidential candidate in 1993 and 1996 before being elected to his first term in 1999. While serving as President of Niger, he was also Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States from 2005 to 2007.

Tandja is of mixed Fula and Kanuri ancestry. He was the first President of Niger who is not ethnically Hausa or Djerma.

Following a constitutional crisis in 2009, which was caused by Tandja's efforts to remain in office beyond the originally scheduled end of his term, he was ousted by the military in a coup d'etat in February 2010.

Tandja was born in Maïné-Soroa, Niger. He participated in the 1974 coup that brought Seyni Kountché to power and became a member of the Supreme Military Council. He became Prefect of Maradi in 1976 before being appointed to the government as Minister of the Interior on September 10, 1979; he remained in the latter position until being replaced by Kountché himself on August 31, 1981. He was then Prefect of Tahoua from 1981 to March 1988, Ambassador to Nigeria from June 1988 to March 1990 and Minister of the Interior again from March 1990 to March 1991.

Ali Saibou (1940 – 31 October 2011) was the third President of Niger from 1987 to 1993 succeeding the deceased Seyni Kountché.

A member of the Djerma people, he was born in Dingajibanda, a village in the Ouallam arrondissement. Although from Kountché's home village, Saibou is not a cousin. He became interested in a military career early on, and attended the Saint-Louis preparatory school in Senegal from 1954, then joined the First Senegalese Tirailleurs Regiment. He saw action in Cameroon in 1960, and was wounded there.

Upon Niger's independence in 1960, Saibou was transferred to the new Niger Army as a sergeant. He attended officers' school, and in 1969 was put in command of a unit at N'Guigmi. After moving to a new unit in Agadez in 1973, he attained the rank of captain. Saibou threw in his lot with Kountché in the coup of April 1974, and brought his troops from Agadez to Niamey. As a reward he was promoted to major, appointed to the cabinet as minister of rural economy and the environment, and on 20 November 1974, made chief of staff.

Hama Amadou (born 1950) is a Nigerien politician who was Prime Minister of Niger from 1995 to 1996 and again from 2000 to 2007. He was also Secretary-General of the National Movement for the Development of Society (MNSD-Nassara) from 1991 to 2001 and President of the MNSD-Nassara from 2001 to 2009. Amadou is from the Kurtey, a Fula sub-group, and was raised in the Tillaberi Region, in the Niger River valley, north of Niamey.

As a result of corruption allegations against his government, he was removed from office as Prime Minister through a 2007 no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. In 2008 he became the target of a corruption investigation which saw him arrested to face criminal charges at the Nigerien High Court of Justice and removed from his post as MNSD President.

Since April 2011, Amadou has been President of the National Assembly of Niger.

During the regime of Seyni Kountché, Amadou was Director-General of the Office of Radio Broadcasting and Television of Niger (ORTN) from 1983 to 1985 and became Director of the Cabinet in 1985. Following Kountché's death, Amadou was named Minister of Information under his successor, Ali Saibou, on July 15, 1988, serving until December 20, 1989.

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr. CC OOnt (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music, and has been credited for helping define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and internationally as a folk-rock legend.

Lightfoot's songs, including "For Lovin' Me", "Early Morning Rain", "Steel Rail Blues", "Ribbon of Darkness"—a number one hit on the U.S. country charts with Marty Robbins' cover in 1965— and the 1967 Detroit riot-generated "Black Day In July" brought him international recognition in the 1960s. He experienced chart success in Canada with his own recordings, beginning in 1962 with the Number 3 hit "(Remember Me) I'm the One". Lightfoot's recordings then made an impact on the international music charts as well in the 1970s, with songs such as "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970) (Number 5 on the US charts), "Sundown" (1974), "Carefree Highway" (1974), "Rainy Day People" (1975), all reaching number 1, and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (1976) (reaching number 2).

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (born January 30, 1941) served as the 46th Vice President of the United States (2001–2009), under George W. Bush.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska, and Casper, Wyoming. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations, where he served the latter as White House Chief of Staff. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming; he was reelected five times, eventually becoming House Minority Whip. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush's term. During this time, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.

Out of office during the Clinton presidency, Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot, ancestry; Cheney's 8th great-grandfather, William Cheney, immigrated from England to Massachusetts in the 17th century. Although not a direct descendant, he is collaterally related to Benjamin Pierce Cheney (1815–1895), the early American expressman. Cheney is a very distant cousin of both Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama; the three share a common ancestor in Mareen Duvall, a Huguenot who fled from France to England in the 17th century and later settled in Maryland. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney was one of three children.