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This article approaches property and citizenship by focusing on the provision of public services and infrastructure in informal urban settlements on the edges of Niamey, the capital of Niger. In documenting property dynamics and claims to public services, it sets out to explore the intimate connection between place, materiality, and the articulation of citizenship and belonging to the city. Public service provision is thus approached as a political arena in which relations between residents and local and national authorities are negotiated on a day-to-day basis. It is argued that in a context of insecure land rights, local mobilizations for the provision of public services and amenities are a way of staking claims to urban land and to inclusion into the wider urban political community. These mobilizations are also shown to be the source of institutional processes in a situation where the state as manifested in investments, infrastructure, and urban plans is otherwise absent.