Why the nightmare in Niger is the world’s problem
Over the past decade a losing battle against violent jihadists, autocrats and insurgents has been raging across the Sahel, an arid and dirt-poor zone in western Africa. That struggle has reached a crisis point after a military coup on July 26th in Niger. It was the last semi-functioning state left in the region after recent military takeovers in Mali and Burkina Faso. The immediate prospect is a country on a knife-edge: ecowas, a group of west African states, has demanded the elected government be restored by August 6th and threatened to take military action against Niger’s junta. The longer-term prospect is of an arc of instability that spreads farther across the continent, endangering far bigger economies including Ghana and Nigeria and even becoming a base for extremism and terrorism beyond Africa’s shores. Niger’s nightmare is another perilous step towards the struggle in the Sahel becoming a global security threat.
The ousting of Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s president, by elements of the army led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, has struck a match in a fireworks factory. France, the former colonial power, is evacuating its citizens. It has 1,500 troops in Niger to fight jihadists and has suspended aid and threatened “an uncompromising response” to any attack on its interests after protesters tried to torch its embassy in Niamey, the capital. The junta says it will defend itself against ecowas’s “plan of aggression”. Its pals in the military regimes of Mali and Burkina Faso say they would treat an attack on Niger as a declaration of war on them, too.
