Niger: Void the military misadventure
I heard the rash remarks on the situation in the Republic of Niger, where military adventurists chose to seize power from the civilian-led administration of President Mohamed Bazoum. The remarks came through ECOWAS, giving an ultimatum to the military usurpers to hand over power back to Bazoum or face military action. This threat of military action […]
I heard the rash remarks on the situation in the Republic of Niger, where military adventurists chose to seize power from the civilian-led administration of President Mohamed Bazoum. The remarks came through ECOWAS, giving an ultimatum to the military usurpers to hand over power back to Bazoum or face military action. This threat of military action reads like an organised script from the start to checkmate the running current of determination by Francophone countries to assert their independence and free their people from continued French expropriation of their resources, interference in their political affairs and the dominance of every facet of their life.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ventured to suggest that Nigeria will deploy troops to Niger to force the return of the ousted Bazoum to power. This stance appears rash given that it promises to obliterate the friendly relations between Nigeria and Niger. These two countries have had very good relations. One can even argue that of the four countries sharing borders with Nigeria, Niger is Nigeria’s best neighbour. What then drove Tinubu to take this cantankerous and rash personal decision to quickly embrace the path of war?
One would have thought that Nigeria would have tarried first and deployed diplomacy before making a military threat. Given the good relationship between Nigeria and Niger, the best line of action was to engage in discussions with the adventurous military that staged the coup. It is strange that without such engagement, a military option was put on the cards. This position seems to be at variance with the way similar military excursions in Burkina Faso and Mali were handled.
The seeming fixation with a needless military adventurism into Niger flies in the face of the silence over organised political arrangements to interfere with term limits. Political office holders, at the highest level of government, having succeeded in winning power through the ballot, have been tinkering with constitutional arrangements to perpetuate their stay in office. No one heard of any mention of deploying the military to restore political order. What makes the situation in the case of Niger different?
Where is the political bravado of deploying the military coming from given that the internal security situation in Nigeria is far from comprehensive conquest? Will Nigeria abandon its fight against insurgency and banditry in the North East and North West respectively to deploy forces into the more than one million square-kilometre territory occupied by Niger? Is Nigeria announcing to the world that it is disbanding the military cooperation arrangement that created the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF)? What will be the implications of this on the fight against insurgency operating across the three countries that jointly formed the MNJTF?
It is very difficult to understand how resorting to military force can help the situation in Niger. How did Nigeria come to the position that an incident such as a coup demands a military adventure that will further add to the poor condition of people in Niger and citizens of Nigeria on the about 1,600km border. This is an area already in the grip of difficult conditions: poor nutrition, poor access to water, paucity of both health facilities and services resulting in high maternal mortality, large number of out-of-school children, low life expectancy, etc.
A military misadventure of the type being imagined will further add to the misery of both Nigerians and Nigeriens.
It is a queer proposition given that the gains of such a military adventure never hold any promise of improving the quality of life of Nigerians and Nigeriens. Or is there an outside force that is pulling strings from behind the scene to cleverly push Nigeria into further security chaos? Are the outside pushers (if any) promising to give support to the Nigerian military to engage the Nigerien military so that the two will kill and destroy their own people to the external forces’ advantage? It is interesting that both Bazoum and the coupists in Niger have been expressing their desire to delink from France. Bazoum had entertained the idea of making Niger to independently print its own currency and opt out of the Franc Zone. He also alluded to working closely with Nigeria to the mutual benefit of the two countries. The coupists have already halted uranium export to France. They have also asked the French to leave the country. Which of these two sides is really ready to disentangle Niger from the exploitative shackles of France?
Already, the United States of America (USA) and France have spoken out against the coup. Is that what is giving Nigeria confidence to propose deployment of the military? It will be very tragic for the president to willingly deploy Nigerian soldiers in a war that the very African people will be victims of. The military adventure will only serve the interest of countries like France, which is in a desperate situation and is ready to come up with schemes to sustain its exploitation. One hopes that Nigeria has not been induced by external forces to deploy its military on a mission that serves other countries’ interests.
It is not proper to deploy Nigeria’s military on a mission against a sister African country that holds the prospect of invasion, going to war with its neighbour and causing widespread misery across West Africa; with Burkina Faso and Mali promising to come to the aid of Niger with their military forces. Nigeria needs to rethink this organised military misadventure that will destabilise the West African sub-region with brothers/sisters killing themselves. It is not useful to turn West Africa into a battle ground in which the people stand to lose.
Nigeria should endeavour to build a strong and collaborative African team of diplomats to enter into this fray and find an amicable resolution. The military approach is a real script for misadventure that will hurt Nigeria’s interest, the interest of West Africa and Africa as a whole. Africa does not need an inter-state war as it is inimical in many ways, but particularly as it can corrode efforts at bringing Africans together to overcome the developmental challenges bedeviling the continent. The Niger crisis must never be an excuse to embark on Africans butchering each other through military confrontation. It is important to recognise and checkmate the pretentious organised rush to assist African countries while further perfecting the process of the destabilisation of African people and carting away their resources. It seems that this is a script to destabilise the whole of Africa and tear to tatters every attempt at promoting intra-African trade relations and development. A war situation is the best vehicle for undermining the environment for development.
Nigeria and ECOWAS need to quickly rethink and void this needless, but promising subversive military adventure. Dialogue, diplomacy, discussions and meetings hold better and enduring prospects for a peaceful resolution without Africans butchering and killing each other.
Muazu is the Director, Centre for Peace, Diplomatic and Development Studies (CPDDS) University of Maiduguri