By Ahmed Yahaya-Joe
“…..Oh, those Russians.” – Last stanza of Rasputin’s track featured in Boney M’s album, Nightflight To Venus (1978)
The French are landlords in West Africa but President Vladimir Putin’s Wagner Group are increasingly challenging them. Virtually every coup crime scene in the Sahel has Russian fingerprints.
Hear, the reaction to President Bazoum’s removal by the Moscow generalissimo, Yevgeny Prigozhin in a voice message on Telegram, “What happened in Niger is nothing short than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonizers. With colonizers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions keeping them in the state Africa was in hundreds of years ago,” said the 62-year-old who added in a sales pitch to the new military overlords that his (Wagner) fighters are ready to deploy to further help “restore order” in Niger.
Already the Russian and Nigerien flags are openly displayed side by side by enthusiastic pro-coup protesters in the Niger capital as can be clearly seen outside the premises of the National Assembly late last week.
Former President Bazoum is an Arab of Rizeigat descent from a clan of Bedouin herders originally from Chad and Sudan but now in Diffa adjacent to the western shores of Lake Chad that has similar Kanuri as Nigeria but locally known as “Manga” on their side of the border.
The Bazoums in Niger are regarded as “foreigners” and his good governance efforts and style have proven unsettling to the longstanding corrupt and ineffective status quo. Now with the kind of unintended consequences, this has awakened a racially motivated indigene/settler dichotomy in Nigerien identity politics.
As far as the widespread Hausanized majority is concerned, his anti-corruption crusade is specifically targeted at them.
Hausas officially constitute almost 60% of the 25 million population of Niger, then the Zarma is put at 15%, with the Tuaregs of Agadez constituting 10%, then the Fulani and Kanuri respectively at 8% and 5%, with the Diffa and Baggara (Shuwa) Arabs among others being the minority of the minorities at less than 2% of Niger’s population put together.
The ‘Kilishi” delicacy that diverse Nigerians so enjoy is a direct import from Agadez to Agadasawa in Kano centuries ago. Those referred to as “Bouzou” in Hausa are dark-skinned Tuaregs originally known as “Bugaje” that have mostly dissolved into the Hausa ethnicity across Nigeria.
Without direct French colonial sabotage to stop the process, Malam Aminu Kano’s NEPU equivalent in Niger would have produced that nation’s first President after national independence – the reason why Hamani Diori (earlier quoted) eventually became the President of Niger under a more France loyal political arrangement, 1960-1974 instead of Djibo Bakary, erstwhile Mayor of the capital, Niamey between 1956 and 1958.
Guess what Parti Sawaba’s slogan was? “Nijar da Nijeriya duka suke” – Niger and Nigeria are the same.
The current age group of incumbent military combatants in West Africa subverting civilian rule between 2021 to date begs the question: if a similar disaffection remotely exist in Nigeria?
This is because the Domino theory is a geopolitical concept that posits that, “increases or decreases in democratic principles in one country tend to spread to neighboring countries in a chain reaction.”
The primary evidence for the Domino theory is the collapse of democracy in three Southeast Asian countries in 1975, “following the Communist takeover of Vietnam: South Vietnam by Viet Cong, Laos by the Pathet Lao, and Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.”
The successful coup plotters Asimi Goita of Mali were born in 1983, Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea in 1980, Mahamat Deby of Chad in 1984, and Ibrahim Traore of Mali born in 1988 and commissioned as recently as 2009. Agreed, the new military leader in Niger is reportedly 59 years old but the combatants that spearheaded his path to power are much younger officers.
Two days before President Bazoum was sworn into office on April 2, 2021, there was a coup attempt that was put down by the same Presidential Guard that has now recently toppled him two years later.
It is not the first time deep cover subterfuge has played out among palace guards in Niger. On April 9, 1999, Major Daouda Malam Wanke (1954-2004) was the head of the Presidential Guards when he blasted his principal, General Ibrahim Ba’are Mainassara (1949-1999) out of the office taking over power for himself.
With the benefit of hindsight, while General Murtala Mohammed effectively utilized the services of Colonel (later Major-General) Joseph Nanven Garba, General Gowon’s Guards commander. But recall, the plotters that removed President Shagari were unable to talk less of recruiting his Brigade of Guards commanding officer, Colonel Mohammed Bello Kaliel (1943-2011) so they waited for him to go on leave before striking on December 31 having successfully co-opted his Brigade Major (later Lt. Colonel) Michael Aker Iyorshe. Ironically, Lt. (later Colonel) William Godang Walbe was the head of Major-General Ironsi’s security detail who turned rogue at Ibadan on July 29, 1966.
Thirteen extremely resource-rich, predominately poor, and insecurity-laden nations bestride the Sahel region from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The predominant lingua franca across is Hausa: Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Sudan and Eritrea.
Six of these nations are ECOWAS countries yet including Guinea four are under military rule. Then there is embattled Sudan where a version of the Russia/Ukraine is still actively playing out.
Americans are not unaware of the strategic importance of defending their entrenched interests in the midriff of the African continent locating one of their largest drone bases and main staging post of the US African Command at Agadez operational since 2016.
There are currently 1,800 and 1,100 troops from France and the US respectively in the Uranium-rich Niger yet the Russians with no boots on the ground have apparently got the upper hand there now.
The intricacies of Nigeria’s relationship with Niger are very complex as Parti Sawaba’s slogan so eloquently reminds us. Nigeria should avoid the kind of backlash from Niger that can politically implode here. Actually, what separates many Sahel countries are artificial boundaries.
As ECOWAS chairman, President Tinubu should cautiously adopt the Charles de Gaulle mantra of, “I understand,” the French leader while understudying the dynamics of the Algerian War. De Gaulle carefully bided his time while articulating his government’s full response.
Similarly, after the October 1987 change of government in Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore breezed into Lagos on a Nigerian presidential jet sent to fetch him to explain to the Nigerian leader how Thomas Sankara died in the crossfire. General Babangida kept on repeating, “I understand,” throughout their Dodan Barracks meeting as televised back in the day on NTA.
Perhaps, Bazoum did not carefully understudy the blowback of his reforms. If he had, we would probably have been more circumspect in his politicking. You don’t make direct enemies of the well-entrenched by instituting far-reaching change too fast – you deploy outflanking manoeuvres instead.
Shortly after President Bazoum formed his cabinet he declared, “As long as you are in my government, you are prohibited from taking an extra wife. If a minister wants to an additional wife, he is not forbidden, but most leave the government.”
Bazoum should not been so brazen with such a religiously charged issue.
There are seven states (called regions) each with an elected governor: Tillaberi, Dosso, Tahoua, Maradi, Zinder, Diffa, and Agadez. The majority of Niger Hausas (and other Hausanized ethnicities) are spread in 5 of those states that are contiguous even across our nearly 999-mile (1,608 km) long border with them.
They are not only mostly polygamous people but have been dominating power, public service, the military, and business in that nation since national independence in 1960.
Notice the proximity of major cities in Niger to those in the core North of Nigeria.
Why is the international community bamboozling the current ECOWAS chairman?
Is President Tinubu stable enough in power to wrestle with the Russian bear on behalf of the US and France?
What is the true position of the political North in Nigeria to recent events in Niger?
Too many questions, too few answers thus the need for cautious diplomacy.
The new military leader in Niger has so far pretended to ignore Nigeria’s status by not sending any envoy to Abuja up to this time of writing.
Therefore, President Tinubu really needs a thoroughbred Foreign Affairs minister preferably an astute diplomat with a proven track record in retirement to help him carefully navigate the international minefields and properly interpret the constantly evolving dynamics in the Sahel region.
So far, no name fits that bill on the list of 28 ministerial nominees.
Concluded.
