Protesters, Don’t Encourage Niger Coupists

Reports of some young Nigerians staging protests in some cities, notably Kano, against last Thursday’s ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government’s decision to activate a Standby Force could inadvertently encourage the Nigerien coupists to stand firm. They will be encouraged to believe that domestic opposition to military action could discourage ECOWAS leaders, notably the Chairman President Bola Tinubu, from resorting to “the last resort” if dialogue and diplomacy fail to dislodge the coupists and restore constitutional rule in the country.

ECOWAS leaders ordered activation of the Standby Force only after the deadline they gave the soldiers to restore constitutional rule in Niger Republic was rudely ignored. The coupists also refused to enter into any meaningful dialogue. Instead, they denied landing rights to a UN and African Union delegation, closed the country’s airspace, closed its land borders, severed diplomatic relations with its neighbours and went on to appoint ministers and a prime minister. They also continued to detain President Mohammed Bazoum in inhuman conditions, according to his daughter, with neither light nor water and only dry rice as food. 

Contrary to some Nigerians’ feeling that last-resort military action to remove the coupists and discourage future coup planners amounts to “an attack on Niger Republic,” this is not so at all. Only a small cabal of soldiers sat down and planned a breach of their country’s constitutional order, flouting core principles of ECOWAS and the African Union and threatening peace and stability in the region. They also ignored calls by the UN Secretary General to retrace their steps and restore Bazoum to the presidency. 

Some Nigerians seem to think that the Standby Force that ECOWAS activated is a novelty and an undesirable escalation of the situation. It is neither. We easily forget that this regional Standby Force is part and parcel of a larger African Standby Force. This African force, which is meant to intervene in humanitarian crisis situations and defend constitutional rule, actually has five regional arms. These are North, Eastern, Western/ECOWAS, Central and Southern Standby Forces, each contributed by African Union member states in the region and designed to address security challenges as they arise in that region.

The model for these must be ECOMOG, the Nigerian-led military mission that intervened to end carnage and civil war in Liberia and then Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Later, when the civil war in Sierra Leone developed to alarming levels and ECOMOG was no longer at hand, the British Army intervened to end the war. Since we don’t want this to happen again, it is very important for the region to learn to solve its own problems, as much as we can.

It is true that the seven Northern Nigerian states that share borders with Niger Republic have genuine fears that events in that country could affect them. Well, events in Niger Republic could affect them even without military intervention because already, we read about insurgent groups planning to challenge the soldiers and restore the civilian government to power. The possibility of a counter coup in Niger Republic is also real, given the ethnic dimensions of this coup. Foreign powers that feel injured by this coup could also engineer counter coups of their own, which could lead to instability. That is what we should fear, because even during the Sahelian drought of 1973/74, millions of Nigeriens poured into Nigeria and severely stretched facilities in the border states. It could be worse in the event of instability. 

Therefore, rather than start street protests that could encourage the Nigerien coupists to further dig in and thwart all reconciliation efforts, it is actually enlightened self-interest to support regional leaders to take whatever action they deem necessary in order to restore constitutional rule in Niger Republic and thereby thwart the possibility of more insecurity and humanitarian crises in the future.