APA-Niamey (Niger) Is the world close to witnessing a military showdown in post-coup Niger where there appears to be no end in sight to the current political crisis triggered by the removal of President Mohamed Bazoum?
Recent muscular rhetoric against coups echoed by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu as the current chair of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) makes this look possible – somewhat.
However, from the vantage point of hindsight, it may be considered far-fetched by the very leaders who met at an extraordinary summit in Abuja on Sunday to send an unequivocal threat of military action to the new rulers in Niamey.
The last few times Ecowas militarily intervened to reverse a coup in a member country was in the mid 1990s in war-ravaged Sierra Leone and in a different set of political circumstances in The Gambia.
A junta led by the now late Johnny Paul Koroma in alliance with the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were routed by a regional force and led to the reinstatement of civilian president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.
Another intervention of a quasi-military kind was in The Gambia in 2017 after then incumbent Yahya Jammeh conceded poll defeat to current President Adama Barrow only to plunge his country into political crisis by his irascible U-turn.
Niger’s presidential guard commander Abdourahmane Tchiani who declared himself as the country’s new leader has vowed to defend its territorial integrity faced with an invasion by foreign forces.
France has been accused of planning possible military action to reinstate Bazoum.
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed tough action against further attacks on his country’s Niamey embassy where a plaque was apparently defaced by protesters mouthing slogans critical of Paris and in support of Russia.
The military government says it is in possession of evidence of a plan by Niger’s former colonial power to reverse last Wednesday’s coup.
Amidst all this the West African regional grouping Ecowas have also issued a thinly-veiled threat of military action if their 7-day ultimatum to restore Bazoum back to power went unheeded by the junta.
Bazoum continues to languish in detention in the presidential palace in Niamey where pictures of him smiling with Chad’s military leader Mahamat Idris Deby Itno have emerged for the first time since his ouster.
Mahamat was there to mediate a peaceful end to the coup impasse.
Is military action possible?
Both sides to the coup divide in Niger have not softened their rhetoric. On the one hand is General Tchiani and junta henchmen who have issued multiple statements warning against foreign military intervention which will be met with force.
On the other hand are those of the anti-coup school of thought led by Ecowas and backed by the West threatening an invasion if the junta refused to back down, return to barracks and leave the running of the uranium-rich country in the hands of civilians led by the ousted president.
The African Union’s own two-week ultimatum to the new strongmen in Niger points to the serious lack of a coordinated continental response to the political crisis in this dust-storm country of the Sahel.
While efforts are being made by the leader of Niger’s next door neighbour Chad to restore normalcy to the country, this could help stave off the prospect of military confrontation for the time being even if the Ecowas ultimatum elapses in a couple of days.
The nature of West African and indeed African diplomacy is usually to give dialogue a maximum chance of succeeding where other means like military action are being contemplated.
The junta in Niamey may call Ecowas’s bluff knowing that the regional organisation has a track record of suddenly softening up after initially hard positions against recent coups such as we saw in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso, which are ruled by military strongmen although with promises to return their countries to democratic rule.
Some observers say the bloc already has other regional politico-security issues to contend with and may not be driven into a full scale military adventure in Niger, compounding the security crisis in a country rife with jihadists who may take advantage of the uncertainties such a confrontation may bring.
Like the three West African countries already in the hands of successful putchists, Niger is being sanctioned by Ecowas but many do not see how the regional bloc would up the ante against General Tchiani into full blown military intervention.
“Ecowas has so many things on its full plate to chew on and by adding military action against the new regime in Niger, it could be biting more than it can handle at this point in time” says one observer.
WN/as/APA