[6] As Minister of Trade, Transport, and Tourism, Abdoulaye participated in negotiations with Nigerian hijackers who had diverted a plane on a domestic flight in Nigeria to Niamey in October 1993.
According to Seyni and observers in the government offices, the journalist was brought handcuffed to Abdoulaye, where the minister beat him severely with a leather crop.
[13][17] He had also previously garnered international attention by accusing the governments of the United States, Denmark and Canada of plotting with opposition parties.
[18] When Maïnassara, who had come to power in a 1996 military coup, was assassinated by the army on 9 April 1999, Souley Abdoulaye lost his position in the government and found himself in the political wilderness.
[19] A member of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP-Jama'a), which had been established as the ruling party under Maïnassara, Abdoulaye was arrested again in August 1999 and questioned by the government about purported vote rigging in the February 1999 local elections in the town of Tahoua.