Wednesday, July 26, 6:30am: The heavy rumbling of military vehicles went almost unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of the early morning, as the Nigerien presidential guard moved to block access to the presidential palace and ministries in Niger’s capital of Niamey. Unbeknownst to the people of Niger rushing about the start of their day, this would mark the beginning of a drastic change to what would have been just another day in Niger. By late afternoon, Bazoum was detained and his government dissolved, despite his refusal to resign. Bazoum’s supporters were also forcibly dispersed when they gathered to protest outside the palace. Finally, the Nigerien army, seen as the last domestic hope to reverse the situation, pledged allegiance to the coup leaders.
Speaking in an address on national television, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, the spokesperson for the Nigerien army, announced: “On this day, 26 July 2023, we – the defence and security forces – have decided to put an end to the regime you know”.
Behind him stood the different branches of Niger’s security: the police, army, air force, presidential guard, and national guard. Subsequently, Niger’s borders were closed, a nationwide curfew was instated, and all institutions of the republic were suspended. The seventh coup in the region in the last three years would have significant implications for a nation and region plagued by weak governance, ineffectual foreign intervention, and militant activity.
How did Niger end up in this position? What lessons can we learn from a young nation caught in a tumultuous struggle towards democracy?
Dissecting the 2023 Nigerien Coup
Coup leader General Tchiani Abourahamane
Coup leader General Tchiani Abourahamane and other army commanders hold a meeting in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on July 28. (Source: The Guardian)
General Tchiani Abourahamane, who appointed himself as head of the new military government under the newly-created National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, previously had an extensive 40-year career which included noteworthy operations such as UN peacekeeping operations in the Ivory Coast, Sudan’s Darfur region, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; an ECOWAS force in the Ivory Coast; and the Multinational Joint Task Force with troops from Niger, Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon to fight against militant Islamist group, Boko Haram.
The BBC described his reputation as “stubborn and taciturn”. He has mostly rejected international attempts to create dialogue and mediation. An ECOWAS delegation failed to meet the general or the ousted President on their visit on August 3, acting US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was denied from meeting the general or the ousted President the week after, and a planned joint mission by ECOWAS, Africa Union, and the United Nations envoys for August 10 was rejected.
The only diplomatic attempt that made it past the closed off country thus far is the ECOWAS’ delegation’s second attempt at engaging in talks with the military government on August 19. This came after a civilian delegation of Nigerian Islamic scholars led by Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau held talks with Abourahamane and had more headway with negotiations with him than officials. Lau said Abourahamane has “accepted to have fully direct discussions with the leaders of ECOWAS ”.
Ousted President Mohammed Bazoum
Ousted President of Niger Mohamed Bazoum, President of Niger, in his office in Niamey, during an interview on May 1 2023. (Source: the africa report).
President Mohammed Bazoum was elected in 2021 and his election marked Niger’s first democratic transition of power since Niger’s independence from France in 1960.
It was not the smoothest democratic transition of power for Bazoum — days before his inauguration saw an attempted coup by a military unit. Ironically enough, this attempted coup was thwarted by Abourahamane. Still, Bazoum’s run-ins with the military would continue. Bazoum and his Niger are considered a favoured and key Western ally – especially of the USA and of former colonial power France. In fact, Bazoum’s closeness with France, mainly through increased military cooperation, was a sore spot for many Nigeriens. Protests expressing anti-French sentiment were subsequently cracked down upon.
“We have uranium, we have diamonds, we have gold and we live like slaves? Why should we? We can’t accept it. The French base in Niger must leave, we don’t need the French to keep us safe,” said one protestor.
There was growing domestic frustration over policies that many saw as implemented for Western partners rather than for Nigeriens: his pursuit of more liberal values (ie. education for girls, tackling early marriages and lowering the world’s highest birth rate), reinforcing Western military influence in the country and region (though mainly for the fight against terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram), and allowing more foreign powers to influence Niger (ie. buying Turkish armed drones and progressing construction of a Chinese-backed oil pipeline), may have had benefits for the nation as a whole, but at the price of public displeasure.
Reactions to the coup
Condemnations have poured in from the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations, the European Union, USA, and France, calling for the end of the coup and restoration of constitutional order and the presidency.
As the days went on and the situation remained unchanged, many Western countries, regional bodies and international organisations stopped funds to Niger — a move with varied implications considering around 40 per cent of Niger’s national budget comes from foreign aid. Regional powers in the Middle East and North Africa: Turkyië, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia remained “concern[ed]”. Whilst China stressed for nationals to “be vigilant” and take safety precautions and avoid going out. Russia did call for restoring constitutional order, but was more focused on accusing the US of double standards for supporting the February 2014 “coup” in Ukraine.
The Nigerien democratic government sought the public to reject the coup, with hundreds taking to the streets to do so. However, many more people demonstrated in favour of the coup, further emboldening Niger’s military supporters.
Supporters of Niger’s ruling junta gather for a protest in Niamey, Niger on August 3. (Source: Foreign Policy)
In the days that followed, no military faction was seen to oppose the junta. In fact, a clear opposition was having difficulty materialising at all — a factor that would hamper external efforts for intervention.
“There’s this sort of groping and grasping for solutions,” said Micheal Shurkin, an expert on West Africa, at the CIA and the National Security Council, “and there’s no easy answers.”
There has been considerable support for the military junta government as well —notably the neighbouring countries of Mali, and Burkina Faso. The neighbouring junta military run countries have sent warplanes to Niger when ECOWAS threatened military intervention if Bazoum was not reinstated. On August 25, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali formed a military pact that would allow the latter two to intervene on its territory in case of an attack.
What’s behind the coup?
The reasons behind the coup appear innumerable.
According to Abourahamane, the action of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland was motivated by the sole desire to “preserve” the nation in the face of a “continually deteriorating security situation”, due to the presence of Islamist militant groups, and “a poor economic and social government”.
Gathering of militants on the Mali-Niger border on July 16, 2021. (Source: Africa Center for Strategic Studies)
While it is true that Niger is sandwiched between two of the deadliest conflicts, with those concerning al-Qaeda and the Islamic State on its western border with Mali and Burkina Faso, and with Boko Haram on its southeastern border with Nigeria, Niger’s security situation had actually shown improvement in the time leading up to the coup, with attacks on civilians decreasing by 39 per cent in the first half of 2023. At the same time, violence had increased in Mali and Burkina Faso — two countries currently under a military junta.
So how valid are Abourahamane’s claims?
Stephen Blank – a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia – believes there is legitimacy in the coup leaders’ claim of terrorism and militant aggression plaguing in the country and region at large, however, he is doubtful that the coup would be more effective in battling the terrorists than the government has been thus far.
Bazoum’s approach towards strengthening Niger through its alliances with Western powers and becoming a hub for French, U.S., German and Italian forces can thus be said to have had positive effects on security in the country. At the same time, post COVID-19, GDP per capita had also grown, granting some positive news for the country’s economy.
So why would a country with an uptick in conditions still fall into a coup?
The answer may lie with what Landry Sigńe, Senior Fellow Researcher at the Brookings Institute, calls a “mismatch between citizens of what they expect democracy to bring” and “the reality of how democracy is playing out in their country”.
The mismatch on democracy’s delivery and performance in terms of effective governance, security imperative and public service delivery, creates concerns and makes citizens question if democracy is able to make good on their demands.
Sigńe puts forth that accountability, which he deems the core determinant of democracy, is the answer to why and whether a country becomes democratic and why they may eventually remain democratic. Sigńe shares, “ that the “extent democracies are able to deliver public services and goods in an inclusive way to citizens” may lead to a breakdown of democratic function and accountability in the public’s eye, which subsequently gives non-democratic forces the opportunity to try to seize power unconstitutionally.
Hence, the mismatch between Bazoum’s strategies and the wants of the people may have contributed to the transfer of power to the military. Aljazeera’s correspondent Ahmad Idris shares that the plight of Nigeriens has been going on for a long time, noting that Niger “has been struggling for decades in terms of economy, in terms of security – even feeding the ordinary people on the street”. The nation is also struggling from several environmental challenges, climate challenges, and is still facing them. Idris said that “people are curious to know how the military will solve those problems they are accusing Bazoum of failing to solve”.
Ulf Leassing, an analyst with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, added that previously conceived stability in Niger in fact, was just an appearance from all the foreign aid.
Nigerien children helping to plant crops under various international organisations’ efforts to combat food insecurity in the region. (Source: Save the Children).
“The state is very weak,” he said, “It’s very poor, and it doesn’t take much to overthrow a president in Niger.”
Currently, the sanctions levied on Niger are taking a further toll on the people: “the impact of the ECOWAS sanctions is very obvious. The price of almost everything has soared, banks lack liquidity so their customers can’t withdraw cash, state revenues have dropped 75% in a week,” Kossey Sanda, an adviser to Bazoum said. Nigeria has also cut 70 per cent of Niger’s electricity, putting millions at risk.
The Nigerien people are angry. Not at the military coup leaders that many stakeholders hoped for, but at Bazoum and all the sanction leviers; whilst support for the coup leaders only grew. However, the military coup leaders cannot expect for the people’s love to last through even tougher times.
Large amounts of military assistance and aid given to Niger had very little visibly benefit to the vast majority of impoverished youth for whom, the West’s closeness to Bazoum is just another display of the usual power dynamics and an extension of colonial rule: elites disregarding the populations needs —according to Alex Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the think-tank Chatham house.
News agency Reuters presented another dimension into the coup: the tense rivalry between Bazoum and the other factions of the state, especially the military.
The increased Western military forces in Niger meant that the Nigerien army was kept on a shorter leash. The anti-corruption programme that Bazoum’s administration carried out created enemies, notably Issoufou’s proteges in the oil sector. Bazoum’s support for EU migration policies to stop people smuggling through Niger heading for Libya and then southern Europe at the height of the European refugee crisis in 2015, angered the Nigerien military who benefitted from smuggling bribes. “[there was a] whole population used to depend on this business,” said Akontchy Mohhamed, a community leader in Agadez (one of the transit cities).
Hence, while the reasons behind Niger’s coup seem numerous, Bazoum’s relationship with military leaders, and rising public discontent amid Niger’s socioeconomic challenges and increasing French influence can be said to have destabilised Niger in the lead up to the coup.
The Cards that Niger was Dealt
The precarious situation in Niger
On Aug 15, at least 17 Nigerien soldiers were killed in an attack by armed groups near the border with Mali. This was a reversal from the first six months of relative peace when attacks on civilians dropped by 39 per cent – reported by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. In neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, where soldiers seized power in 2021 and 2022, violence soared.
Chatham House cited the Sahel region “weak governments characterised by corruption, impunity, and disorganisation” with “their elites … fail[ing] to provide security for vast sections of the population” as the key reason why terrorism has taken root that in the region, which has been traced as far as the Soviet Afghan war from 1970 to 1989.
Amid the instability, Niger may be facing a humanitarian crisis. Niger has been a main transit route for refugees travelling from Africa to Europe. When the military closed Niger’s borders and airspace, over a thousand of migrants were left stranded. The International Organisation for Migration has since asked for an urgent humanitarian corridor out of Niger. In addition to the overcrowding IOM centres, which hosts around five thousand migrants, an estimated 1800 migrants are awaiting IOM assistance outside. If the overcrowding situation persists, IOM may not be able to continue its work to support these migrants, which will pose to be another straw on Niger’s back.
Migrants gathered at the IOM transit centre in Asssamaka, Niger. (Source: International Organisation of Migration)
To cope with large influxes of migrants, Niger had previously adopted EU-friendly legislation to prevent smuggling through its Northern routes — EU aid funding for which is temporarily suspended due to the coup. How Niger will stem the migrant flow without foreign aid is unclear, and the ramifications of not being able to do so may add to the already precarious domestic situation in Niger.
Jérômee Tubiana — a French researcher and journalist who has covered conflict and displacement issues across the Sahel region and Horn of Africa – said, “much like in Sudan, EU countries … were not listening to warning of the destabilising effects of the migration policy, they were just obsessed with [reducing] migration.”
The danger of foreign intervention
Niger was the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars for development aid, assistance programmes, and military support from many Western countries, regional organisations, and international organisations. The USA alone has spent around US$500 million (S$677 million) since 2012; over a thousand US military personnel have been conducting counterterrorism operations and training the Nigerien military, while two massive drone bases track movement of the terrorist militant groups. France had also deployed thousands of troops in the Sahel region to support the counterterrorism effort.
So how did Bazoum and Niger end up in this position?
The danger of Western intervention was foretold by Bazoum himself. Back in 2011 when he was the foreign minister, he criticised Western intervention in Libya: predicting it would start instability in the region. J. Peter Pham – a former Sahel envoy for the US government – said, “Mr. Bazoum warned Obama administration officials that the military action in Libya was going to “throw all sorts of actors to the winds,” and that the United States needed to “help Niger before that sandstorm hits us.” Islamist militants spread across the Sahel, partially weaponised by the spillover from Libya.
US and Niger flags raised side by side at the base camp for air forces and other personnel supporting the construction of Niger Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger. (Source: CNN)
US military strategy in the region and Niger was, and is not, effective. US troops faced severe restrictions after they were ambushed alongside Nigerien troops by a group of Islamic State fighters, on a search and rescue mission for kidnapped American aid worker Jeff Woodke in 2017. Four US soldiers and four Nigerien troops were killed and many more wounded – it was seen as the deadliest attack for US troops in Africa.
“We are not able to engage like we would like,” an unnamed US defence official that was interviewed by NBC News added, “but that’s also because we don’t have the resources we need. We don’t have enough, and so our hands are tied.” Another U.S. defence official said: “The entire National Defense Strategy for the U.S. includes exactly one paragraph about Africa. That tells you how much we prioritise the continent.”
Biden’s administration was the first to release a strategy for West Africa. He sent several senior leaders, including Secretary of State Antony Binken to the region. However, the position for US ambassador to Niger has been empty since 2021, and the nomination was delayed and only confirmed on July 27, one day after the coup. And Trump’s administration did not fill the position of envoy to the sahel region as well. “We’ve invested half a billion dollars in military assistance plus probably somewhere close to $2 billion in humanitarian and development assistance in this country over the last 10 years. And yet we let it go for almost two years without an ambassador,” said J. Peter Pham, the former envoy to the Sahel. “In a way we were flying blind, and we knew it.”
The NBC News article outlines the view of some experts and former officials that the Biden administration’s inability to anticipate or influence events in Niger shows how Africa has often been a lower priority compared with other regions and crises. “People in Africa have been telling me for two years now that a coup in Niger was imminent,” Shurkin said. But “at the end of the day, it wasn’t that high of a priority for us, or even for the French.” NBC News echoes some experts’ conclusion that it is uncertain if the US or France would even get involved had they had prior knowledge of the coup. France has been more hesitant to exercise military force recently: French President Emmanuel Macron “decided not to for all the right reasons,” Shurkin said. “He didn’t want France to be in a position of intervening like a colonial power.”
Protestors hold an anti-France placard during a demonstration on independence day in Niamey on August 3, 2023 (Source: Politico)
Anti-french sentiment was already there in Niger and Abourahamane amplified it during the coup. NBC News alleged that Russia has helped fuel anger at France by disseminating online propaganda and disinformation in Niger and across the Sahel. Members of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation, operate in Mali and Sudan, and the Central African Republic. “You don’t need Russia to teach Niger to dislike France,” Shurkin said, but the Russians “have definitely been turning up the heat a bit.” Shurkin added that he had seen an “alarming” turn on African social media toward “the easy answers offered by strongmen.”
“People are disappointed by those democracies and how they’ve worked out. And they’re turning their backs on it, which I find understandable but tragic,” Shurkin concludes.
Shurkin accurately encapsulates much of Western foreign policy: constrained financial and military support with clipped wings, rolled out in an unstable situation, then expressing disappointment when the insecurity continues; and ‘former colonial powers’ unsure (and at times reluctant on) how to continue in the region. The “turning their backs on it” attitude of the US (and other Western countries) is not a surprise. Albeit, it has to be stated that each country has the sovereign right to decide their foreign policy and strategies.
Just three months ago as well, Secretary Blinken – the very first US secretary of State ever to travel to Niger – promised more than $150 million in humanitarian assistance and political support. African analyst, Cameron Hudson poses a provocative thought: therein lies a question that Washington should ask itself now: “if after all this money, attention and engagement, if we cannot keep Niger on a democratic path, then what are we doing wrong?”
It is clear that the disappointing democratic performance in this region cannot be remedied by foreign military intervention alone, but rather requires a more holistic approach to nation-building and the upkeep of democracy.
What’s Next for Niger?
Diplomatic progress was seen with Abourahamane’s proposal of a three-year transition plan, following the hard-fought talks between ECOWAS and the Nigerien military government on August19, will have its principles decided within 30 days at a dialogue hosted by the military junta government.
General Tchiani made a television address to the nation on July 28. (Source: BBC)
A morsel of hope that there will be peace and no bloodshed: “Neither the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland nor the people of Niger want war, and remain open to dialogue. But let us be clear: if an attack were to be undertaken against us, it will not be the walk in the park some people seem to think,” said Abourahamane.
Emmanuel Kwesi Aning – professor of peacekeeping practice at Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana – said: “The [attempted] coup fits into a long pattern of inability by the political class to speak to the economic challenges and the security and political instabilities in the country … Corruption is the big elephant in the room, plus a fight against violent extremists. This is a challenge that almost all West African governments are facing.”
Transparency International gives Niger a Corruption Perceptions Index score of 32/100 in 2022 but the percentage of public service users who paid a bribe in the past 12 months is 23 per cent (from the 2019 publication of the GCB).
For a young country that had a traumatic past, the hard-fought independence is just the beginning. The road ahead is long and turbulent: few barely made it through the peace-building stage and most are giving a feeble attempt at nation-building. The welcome package to newly formed countries is less of a help.
Niger had to decide which superpower it should strengthen its ties with. It had to choose between the USA or the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Cold War, on top of its continued relationship with France. Presently, the possibility of Nigerien military officials embracing Russia to replace France is unclear. Samuel Ramani – an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the author of ‘Russia in Africa’ – laid out possible options for Abourahamane to take, but saying it’s more possible for Abourahamane to follow Burkina Faso’s path of “courting Russia as a strategic partner but not accepting the Wagner Group”.
It is hard to dispute that there is Russian influence in the region, with strongholds in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan. Many like Blank expands on that, raising an interesting claim of Russian influence in the Nigerien coup: that Russia wants to replace African governments with Russian proxies to reduce Western influence and grow authoritarianism. Blank sees the Niger coup as Russia taking advantage of the already precarious domestic situation to exert influence over the country: the coup was done by military officers “clearly connected” to Russia from arm sales or relations to the Wagner military corporation; similarities in the coups in Niger, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Mali.
Still, claims of Russian influence are also muddied with fake news. There has been no news of Abourahamane in contact with Putin, however, it has been reported that the military leaders have reached out to Wagner Group boss Prigozhin for help. Before his death, Prigozhin said, “What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers. With colonisers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago. Today this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will without doubt depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonisers.”
Blank further states that “Moscow clearly exploits regional, tribal, ethnic, religious, or inter-state conflicts in Africa for its purposes” leveraging on “an extensive and widely used information network … [and] its military, economic and political ties with local parties in order to promote its clients”.
Niger also had the difficult decision between whether to untangle the antagonistic tribal and ethnic relations, or impose uniformity when forming a national identity, as well as to decide which to compromise in the interim for long term stability: meeting the needs of the people or nation building, among other difficult questions. On top of these decisions, Niger has had to contend with the external threats and pressures thrust upon them, and the fall out of choosing between Scylla and Charybdis.
Niger had to decide quickly, as the acceptable window for transition into a democracy exponentially decreases with each threat to stability rearing its ugly head. Still, no route the Nigerien government would have chosen would have made a difference without the people’s support. The lifeline of successful peace-building and nation-building is the people being supportive of their government, laying down the bricks together.
As for the current plight of the Nigerien people, who have been divided and pitted against each other during colonial rule, struggled to fulfil basic needs, and find themselves in a country still grappling with establishing a reliable foundation, how else might they have been expected to respond?
Why Niger Cannot Fall
Niger is seen as the last stronghold against Islamist militant movements in the region and the last ally to the West. Should it fall, more than just the consequences of extremist influence expansion – Niger’s precarious domestic situation could hit even more devastating levels, intensifying the already worrying humanitarian crisis in the region.
The fall of Niger would also mean that the Sahel region may gain another alternative name other than ‘The Coup Belt’: ‘The Region of Failed States’. The destabilising effects from the coups and insurgencies over the years have hampered prosperity and peace in the region; and has even been speculated to possibly start an African war.
The tenuous progress that Niger has made over the years has to be safeguarded and fostered for its momentum to gain traction. In the future, Niger could be hailed as a success of the strength of the Nigerien people, and the international community coming together to establish stability and peace.
The rest of the world cannot see themselves immune to the plight of Niger and the wider Sahel region, nor should they hold the belief that such upheavals are endemic to the region. It is time to rethink the go-to strategies to fight insurgencies in countries whose nation-building is still in its infancy, and adopt a multi-prong approach that targets both the root and the fruit. This would undoubtedly require a lot of money and resources, as well as the coordinated and genuine effort of the international community. I would like to offer a different perspective: instability is like termites; you will not see how much damage has been done to the structure of your house till it collapses. Likewise, the global world order we know and benefit from today relies on relative stability and predictability. And like termites, if your neighbour has it, chances are you will too.
