A coup under their noses: the United States has 1,100 soldiers in Niger (and two bases for drones), France has 1,500, the UN should have moved the 13,000 peacekeepers expelled by the military junta of Mali to Niamey by the end of the year , who prefers Wagner’s Russian mercenaries to the United Nations. A coup d’état under the nose (and in the pockets) of the European Union, which at the beginning of 2023 had renewed a 30 million euro training mission for Nigerien forces.
Effective efforts, given that jihadist violence has decreased in the country in recent months: in the last year, out of 10,000 victims in the region, most have fallen in Mali and Burkina Faso (which have broken ties with the West by embracing the ‘Russian bear). So the motivation of General Omar Tchiani, 62, head of the presidential guard who yesterday presented himself on TV as the new leader of the third poorest country in the world, with the official approval of the Armed Forces, sounds like a pretext: «We have removed the regime for the worsening of the economic situation and of the security conditions”.
Pretexts. Tchiani was about to be ousted by President Mohamed Bazoum, who heads the last remaining democracy in the belt of the Sahel that runs from the Red Sea to the Atlantic coast of Guinea. Bazoum, a former trade unionist in power since 2021, is allegedly a prisoner in the Niamey building with his family. The French government maintained that the outcome of the coup was uncertain. Before Tchiani went on TV, asking “the countries that support Niger to show understanding” towards the new masters. The West has already said that he will turn off the aid taps. Also evicted from Niger, where would Americans and company go to base? In Chad, ruled by a non-democratic government but supported by Paris?
– The Sahel region runs from the Red Sea to the Atlantic coast of Guinea
Emptiness is a nest that fills up quickly, or someone creates it and then occupies it. Tchani regrets that the alliance with Mali and Burkina Faso, the neighbors where the military has taken power by force in recent years, was not strengthened sooner by breaking with the French (former colonial occupiers) and whoever for them. In Mali the vacuum was filled by Wagner, in Burkina it could happen soon: in the group photo above, the people closest to Vladimir Putin at the Russia-Africa summit are the Egyptian Al Sisi and Captain Ibrahim Traoré, head of the junta coup plotter who seized power in Ouagadougou last September.
Nor is it accidental the broadcast, on Thursday evening, of an audio on some Telegram channels close to Wagner, attributed to «nosferatu» Prigozhin, who allegedly complimented the coup plotters of Niger by defining what happened «a moment of liberation from the western colonizers expected time ago”.
Russia has been the leading arms exporter in Africa for ten years. Of course, it remains irrelevant as regards economic aid. This may matter to the leaders of countries such as Kenya or Nigeria, which in fact were not in St. Petersburg. But supporting authoritarian regimes that govern countries that have always been in extreme poverty with Wagner’s militiamen doesn’t cost much and can bring advantages.
Economic: the exploitation of the bauxite mines in Guinea, the gold mines in Central Africa or in the areas of Sudan controlled by the “rebels” who are fighting the regular army. And geopolitical: seeing the West robbed of the Niger oasis repays the disappointment of a summit with fewer African leaders than expected. And the more trouble the enemies have in the Sahara, the better for those who started the war in Europe.