Two weeks ago the army took over power in Niger in a coup d’état. The putsch was started by the Presidential Guard. The rest of the military soon joined them. They have held President Mohamed Bazoum in his official residence since then. The reaction to the coup has been predictable. Swift condemnation from the usual quarters, mainly France, the United States and their European allies for upsetting the normal order without their permission or approval. Usually, they instigate such actions. If they do not, but approve, they are either silent or openly embrace the coup makers. They do not break the actions of any independent actors. The African Union (AU) and the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also condemned the coup. It is a position the leaders have taken to prevent the removal of elected governments by unconstitutional means. Suspension of aid and other forms of sanctions quickly followed. So too, threats of military intervention to reinstate President Bazoum and his government. The threats usually come from the west, which puts pressure on African countries to carry it out. Indeed recent reports speak of ECOWAS military chiefs agreeing to an intervention plan. The president of Nigeria, the biggest military power in the region, went ahead to seek parliamentary authority to send troops into Niger. However, the Nigerian Senate rejected the request, arguing that the country should deal with its own Boko Haram insurgency that it has failed to put down. That puts the threatened ECOWAS military intervention into serious doubt. Similar reaction from the usually vociferous defenders of liberal democracy among Africa’s intellectual elite did not materialise as expected. When it did, it was unusually feeble or muted. We did not hear much condemnation of the coup in Niger as sacrilege against democracy. Indeed, not all the opposition to the military take-over of the government has waved the democracy banner. This deviation from usual practice is significant and could mark the beginning of a change in attitudes. Blinkers might finally come off and a clearer view of the situations prevailing in different countries emerge. Perhaps they now realise that they have been fed a lie. For the foreign powers, democracy is not the sacred cow. Economic and political control is. No one can doubt the popularity of the coup in Niger (a kind of democratic vote?) among ordinary citizens. They celebrated in the streets, which probably means they do not see the military as illegal power grabbers, but rather as patriots grabbing power from those holding it on behalf of external interests under the veneer of democracy. Even the west has not condemned the coup as an affront to democracy as they usually do. They probably also recognise the lie and know that it will not hold this time. Or realise there is no need to. And so they now present it in geostrategic terms. First, they say the coup weakens the fight against terrorism in the whole of the Sahel region. Nearly all the western reporting after the coup say ‘Niger is seen by the United States and European allies as a key base in the struggle against armed jihadists in the Sahel’. Nothing about democracy or the interests of the people in Niger. Second, the democracy banner has been replaced by a warning of the arrival of Russia. They have now skewed the narrative of events in Niger as essentially a case of competition for control and influence between them and Russia. That, of course, may be true. It has, however, other consequences, clearly calculated. It obscures the facts of the situation that led to the coup d’état and diverts attention from it. Then it presents Africans as incapable of charting an independent course or deciding what is in their best interest. They must be in one camp or the other, never in both or in neither. Which position confirms Africa as a battleground for foreign powers. Underlying all these reports and disputes, but only mentioned in passing, are the huge mineral resources of Niger and other countries in the region that France and the west have been taking almost free. These are best exploited when governments are weak or beholden to one of the powers for their stay in power, or when those powers have a military presence to enforce their will. What appears to be a principled western opposition to change of governments through a coup d’état is no more than moral posturing that obscures the real intention – unfettered political and economic control. The AU’s defence of the constitutional order is, of course, understandable and even laudable. However, its blanket enforcement often disregards local issues that may make change of government outside the normal process inevitable, even desirable, abhorrent though that may seem to them. Various groups for different ends exploit local grievances that are not addressed eventually. For instance, it has been shown that jihadist or other disaffected groups take advantage of long-standing unresolved local issues, government incompetence or absence, and marginalisation. That seems to be the situation in Niger. In many of these countries, the African political elite is seen to be too close to foreign interests and hardly keen on local issues. The insecurity resulting from the above has led to the presence of huge numbers of foreign troops in the region ostensibly to fight jihadist insurgency. Yet, despite their presence and a lot of money and equipment that have been poured into the area, they have not ended or weakened jihadist or other insurgencies. This is probably not their primary aim anyway. Perhaps the insurgency also keeps the local military and politicians, as well as citizens too preoccupied with the war to pay close attention to economic matters. Now the soldier boys come and want to upset all that. Of course, they must be stopped. The stakes also seem to be higher. Niger is too important to lose. There is also the fear of example. And then the spectre of big bad Russia hanging over the region. The soldiers have been in power for two weeks. The threat of force to restore constitutional order remains. Let us see how long they will last. That period may have important consequences for Africa’s relations with the rest of the world.
