By LaBode Obnor
On July 26, 2023, the Sahel woke up to the news that a military junta led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani seized power from Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. He remained in custody and has been reduced to having dry rice as a daily meal. The coup sparked intense debate and concern about the future of democracy and stability in the ECOWAS regional bloc.
Due to the complexity of the illegal seizure of power from the Niamey government, which profoundly has far-reaching implications, it thus requires careful analysis, considerations, and a cautious need to present perspectives from both sides.
On the one hand, proponents of the coup argue that it was necessary to address the growing corruption and inefficiency within the government, with the hope that a change in government would ultimately improve the lives of Nigerien citizens. No doubt, despite the appendages of democracy in place, Niger ranked among the poorest in the world according to the United Nations (UN) Human Development Index (HDI). The country was not fairing better under the administration of the deposed president. Corruption and volatility were still a mainstay in the country, but will a military takeover of all economic and political processes be the antidote to Niger’s rot?
If history remains a guide in Africa, military intervention will unlikely yield enduring dividends.
Conversely, coup opponents raise concerns about its negative consequences for the country and region. Chief among them are the ECOWAS member states and their Western overlords, explicitly France and the United States. Though their roles are disparate, they argue that a military takedown threatens and supplants the democratic institutions gradually established in Niger since its independence in 1960. They fear the coup sets a dangerous precedent for future power grabs and imperils the region’s stability. There’s the worry that the international community may respond with sanctions, exacerbating ordinary Nigerien’s economic challenges.
Is the spluttered indignation of these countries genuine? Do they engage with clean hands? What about Nigeria’s President Tinubu’s led ECOWAS? Has the organization been beguiled by the coercion of the West to do their bidding? France has been exploiting Niger since the 1900s, and ECOWAS should not feign obliviousness.
A cursory look at France’s exploitative practices imposed on Niger shows that the country depends on France for its existence. Pre-independence abuses and rachmanism expose the entrenched wealth theft, resource extraction, and economic dominance for the benefit of France while sidelining the local Nigerien population. The harsh labor conditions, unequal trade relationships, and land dispossession accelerated the suffering of the indigenous Nigerien people – who endured social, economic, and political subjugation at the hands of their colonial master, France.
Post-independence shows a trend not unlike the colonial age. France’s colonial legacy continues to influence the contemporary political and economic landscape of Niger profoundly. They’ll cheat, trick, and suck dry the country’s wealth beneath the ground. They use Niger as a testing ground for nuclear weapons programs, extensively utilizing the country’s uranium resources without paying fair and adequate compensation. They neglect and disregard the environmental consequences, which resulted in the contamination of vast areas, detrimental to the land and its inhabitants.
These exploitative practices have been employed by France since 1960 after its pseudo-independence exacerbated the socio-economic disparities that Niger suffers today. It stifles local development and perpetuates the dependence culture in the country. Among many is forcing Niger to continue using France’s CFA franc as their currency, while France has since dumped the currency for the Euro.
And to the rest of the Western nations (the United States mainly), although not brazenly robbing Niger, show diplomatic coercion and intimidation geared towards self-interest. Not a hoot about the country’s viability is given.
Niger is located in the semi-arid Sahel region and is a strategic location for the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign and fight against jihadist insurgencies. With 2 military bases and 1100 troops, the U.S. interest in the country is why it condemns the coup while ignoring the same in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, which are situated in the same West African region.
As for President Tinubu and ECOWAS, it is never about display of strength but a dreary and dismal weakness. A lapdog for Western dominance to engineer a war of invasion on a neighboring West African state. Failing miserably in its first test under Tinubu as a regional anchor, the organization hastily announced a veiled threat of military invasion if the junta in Niamey refused to step down and reinstate Mohamed Bazoum. The military thumbed its nose and defiled the ultimatum of August 10, yet ECOWAS failed to act.
A test of its linchpin bungled at the early stage.
Now the junta has dug its heels, closed its airspace, and remains defiant. Its leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, who recently declared himself the Head of State, threatened to kill the deposed president if there is any foreign military intervention in Niger. Meanwhile, ECOWAS closed its borders between Niger and its member states, instituted a no-fly zone for commercial flights in and out of Niger, froze the country’s assets in ECOWAS central banks and commercial banks, and instituted a travel ban and asset freeze for those involved in the coups and their families. This is in addition to the European Union (EU) stopping all aid and ceasing all military funding to the country.
As the drum beats of war grow louder, the situation on the ground seems dire for the people of Niger and even for seven Nigerian states bothering the Niger Republic. But the corollary effect of all these goes beyond a military takeover or the threat to democracy. It is less about the risk to regional stability and more about the looming death of the French empire in the Francophone nations – and the prospect of this agonizes the French.
After more than 100 years of colonialism and after other colonial powers left Africa, France, and its dominant stronghold, with the blessing of the United States, remained through what it called “Francafrique” or in other instances, “La Francophonia” A formidable neocolonial nexus across sub-Saharan Africa encompassing economic, political, security and cultural ties and alliance centered on the french language and values – from Mali, Burkina Faso to Senegal and Guinea and, yes Niger.
However, the Africans have begun to resist their otherwise docile acquiescence to French hegemony. And “down with France,” the Nigeriens chanted as they targeted the French embassy smashing windows and setting fire to perimeter walls. No doubt France understands the existential conundrum she is in if Niger and its former colonies were to attain complete independence and sovereignty. Jacques Chirac, its former president, acknowledged this when he stated in no uncertain terms, “Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third-world power” His predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, in 1957, already prognosticated that “without Africa, France will have no place in the 21st century”.
So to assure its existence, it must resist even if it means enlisting the help of gullible ECOWAS nations to wage war on their brethren. Many of whom have allowed their credulity to blind brotherliness and common reasoning. Thus, the people of West Africa should not only resist this misguided war-mongering of their monocrats on horseback but defy any leader who attempts to influence the people to embark on the most fatuous, wrongheaded, and vile that is the war on Niger.
It is time for West Africa to stop being “France’s garden”
–
Email: JlaBode74@gmail.com Twitter: @Obanor
I cannot agree more with you. It is time for the West Africa and the entire Africa to rise up and say enough is enough to the exploitation of our natural resources by the foreign powers who do so with the help some of our misguided leaders. We are no longer blind to what is happening.