Niger coup highlights west’s failing policy in the Sahel

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Some may be tempted to greet news of yet another African coup with a shrug. Last week’s putsch in Niger was the seventh in west and central Africa in three years. Genuine hopes a few years ago that democracy was planting meaningful roots have been uprooted by men in khaki and dark glasses.

Yet this was not just another coup. The fall of Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum removes the west’s most important ally in the Sahel. That potentially leaves the stage to jihadist groups linked to Isis and al-Qaeda, and to Russia’s Wagner group. These forces could now gather strength in an unbroken “coup belt” running 3,500 miles from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east. Vladimir Putin, who hopes to establish what European diplomats call “a second front” south of the Mediterranean, will take heart.

The narrow issue is what to do about Niger. The regional response led by Nigeria’s new president Bola Tinubu has been robust. Nigeria and its allies have threatened Niger’s putschists with force (as well as biting sanctions) if they do not restore civilian rule within a week. Tough talk could prove hollow. It is also compromised by the fact that four of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States are now under military rule themselves. Mali and Burkina Faso are backing the putschists.

Still, regional leaders are right to try to hold the line. Bazoum’s ousted government was far from perfect, but it is worth defending. Despite the putschists’ claims to the contrary, with help from France, Germany and the US, Niger’s army had proved better at containing the jihadist insurgency — much of it spilling over from Mali and Burkina Faso — than those failing military regimes. Democracy was flawed but broadly popular. Sunday’s noisy demonstrators on the streets of Niamey, the capital, some waving Russian flags, should not be misinterpreted as mass support for the coup or for Wagner. Neither Niger’s generals nor Russia’s mercenaries have anything to offer.

If hopes of putting back together the broken Humpty Dumpty of Niger’s democracy are slim, what remains — if anything — of western policy in the Sahel? France is deeply unpopular. Its policy of meddling in former colonies has spectacularly backfired. Emmanuel Macron has genuinely sought to normalise relations, but his attempt to turn a page has been scuppered by unresolved dilemmas about how to tackle the widening Islamist threat.

If Niger’s coup sticks, France may have to consider abandoning its military base as it was forced to do in Mali and Burkina Faso. The US too would need to decide whether it should work with a military government or leave the country to its fate.

The west has major interests at stake here. A collapsing Sahel so close to Europe is a frightening prospect, in terms both of security and of potential flows of migrants fleeing a lawless and dangerous neighbourhood. Niger is also a supplier of uranium to France’s nuclear industry.

Above all, western countries need to present a more coherent offering in Africa, starting with investments to help countries transform their raw materials for the benefit of local economies. African countries should prosper from the green transition, not be penalised.

For too long, both Europe and the US ignored both Africa’s potential and strategic importance in favour of an anachronistic view of the continent as a purely humanitarian problem. Both have recently woken up to the fact that, in failing to see Africa’s significance, they have ceded ground to China and increasingly Russia. Only by taking the continent more seriously and by helping it prosper can they make up lost ground.