Niger is literally the very first country in the world to criminalize asexuality. It couldn't have been normally ignored at any prior point in history.
Besides, this is more about Niger tightening relations with Russia. Part of their military agreement is aligning society with "Russian values".
No country on this planet is interested in regular colonialism anymore by the way. It's all neocolonialism which in this specific case is fairly obvious Russian neocolonialism. Western neocolonialism occurs in other African countries.