Ecowas has, over the years, faced some problems that seemed absolutely intractable.
Remember the murderous Charles Taylor/Foday Sankoh insurrectional episodes in Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1991-92?
Or the General Robert Guei/Laurent Gbagbo/ Alhassan Ouattara military confrontations in Cote d’Ivoire?
Those were days when the Economic Community of West African States had to meet the challenge of either sitting down and watching West Africa crumble into an anarchic lump of territory that could spread its wings all over the Region, or put on its military armour and stoically try to restore sanity to the politics of its embattled member nations.
The military arm of ECOWAS, known as ECOMOG, rose to the occasion. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire resumed “normal” politics after ECOMOG had succeeded in helping to drive out the armed bandits who had terrorised their populations for years.
That heroic era cannot be far from the memories of West Africa’s current rulers. But alas, conditions have changed in the ECOWAS domain, and that makes what might be called a “knee-jerk” reaction to the problem posed by the seizure of power by the military in Niger on July 26, 2023, both unwise and impractical.
To begin with, Nigeria, the de facto leader of ECOWAS, is in no position to brandish either the political, or military clout that could convince the Niger putschists that their future depends on reaching some sort of agreement with the ECOWAS leaders.
Politics, it is axiomatic, is an art of the possible. The cultural and religious affinities that exist between the people of some of the northern states of Nigeria have occasioned some Nigerian politicians to warn that military action by ECOWAS against the Niger putschists, would constitute an act of “civil war by Nigerians against themselves”. The Nigerian Senate, without whose concordance President Bola Tinubu cannot send the Nigerian army to fight abroad, refused to endorse such a military deployment before it adjourned sitting for its holidays (as if the country’s situation was “normal”!)
How the Senate would react, if President Tinubu were to ask it to come back and sit in an emergency session to approve a war resolution, is a moot question.
Fortunately for President Tinubu, a powerful group of traditional and civil leaders of Northern Nigerian origin has managed to cross Niger’s closed borders to engage in dialogue with the Niger putschists. Their message to President Tinubu, it appears, has been that ECOWAS erred in threatening military action against the coupists, who are ready to talk with their ECOWAS brothers. That the coupists were ready to receive this group (after refusing to engage with a delegation of ex-heads-of-state of Nigeria sent by Tinubu opens a door to negotiation at which the ECOWAS leadership must push very hard.
It’s not as if negotiations between the coupists and the ECOWAS leadership will be easy. The coupists have adroitly appointed a 21-member new cabinet which includes many civilians (an obvious ploy to try and pre-empt any demand by ECOWAS that the country should be returned to “civilian rule”.”
The inclusions of the civilians in the government is also an adroit move to prevent the United States and its Western allies from withdrawing aid from Niger. This display of smart political footmanship has convinced many observers that the coup leaders are being teleguided by some powerful overseas advisors, probably from the United States. Under a programme being implemented in the region by “Africiom”, the US has been training some military officers from the West African Region in its war colleges. Additionally, the US has constructed a major military base at Agades, in Niger, where specialists in drone warfare are being trained.)
In fact, an American publication claims that the US has been involved in no less than nine coups d’etat in the West African region, including those that occurred in the two countries that have announced the strongest support for the Niger coup – Mali and Burkina Faso.
Unravelling the foreign element in Niger’s current politics is, as a result, a very confusing process. The Niger coupists – like their counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso – have been delivering all sorts of political blows to Niger’s former colonial master, France. French military advisors helping Niger and its two neighbours to fight jihadists, have mostly been withdrawn. At the same time, the nebulous Russian mercenary group, Wagner, is reported to be providing them with “military services” formerly provided by France.
That raises the following issue: if the Americans are as influential in the military machines of Burkina Faso, Mali (and now Niger) as reported, why are they tolerating Wagner mercenary activity in the area? In any case, has France ceased, in all but name, to be a trusted NATO ally of the US in West Africa, with whom political and military responsibilities are shared in common?
ECOWAS would be well advised to investigate and weigh all these complex factors, as it seeks a viable solution to the problem posed to it by the Niger problem.
Of course, the ECOWAS leadership is right in detesting and opposing violent changes of government in ECOWAS member countries. But it has to be clever in doing so, for as a Machiavellian, realpolitik analysis would tell them, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride!”
BY CAMERON DUODU
