Festina Lente, ECOWAS!

In post-colonial Africa, particularly in West Africa, military coups have featured prominently, starting with the first of the sub-region taking place in 1963 in Togo.

Prior to that was a coup in Sudan in 1958, perhaps the first on the continent.

In West Africa, Ghana and Nigeria top the chart, with 10 each of coups and attempted coups.

Niger situation

Last month, the coup ‘pandemic’ of recent years spread to Niger, resulting in the removal from office of President Mohamed Bazoum.

The sub-regional body, ECOWAS, is sufficiently irritated to talk about a military intervention to remove the new military junta and restore Bazoum and the constitutional order.

They are backed by former colonial power France, which has huge vested interests in the country’s huge uranium deposits for the purposes of its nuclear programme, and therefore, would want to move heaven and earth to protect those interests.

But the soldiers are not taking it lying down and have effectively threatened fire and brimstone should ECOWAS carry out its word.

According to reports, Niger’s junta has told a top US diplomat that they would kill deposed President Mohamed Bazoum if neighbouring countries attempted any military intervention to restore his rule.

The military leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali have vowed to join their colleagues in Niger if ECOWAS dares to invade.

Algeria, Niger’s northwestern neighbour, has stated that any invasion of Niger would be seen as a direct threat to the country.

It may well join the fray if the tanks roll into Niger.

Interestingly, all the Burkinabe, Malian and Nigerien military juntas, riding high on anti-French sentiment for fully understandable reasons, have cast their eyes eastwards towards Russia for a new romantic dalliance.

Moscow is not being shy or coy over this new love, especially when Niger has rich uranium deposits.

Were war to break out, it is obvious that Niger would simply emerge as a theatre for a proxy war between east and west — a sense of harking back to the Cold War of the 1960s all over again, when the USA and the then USSR viciously fought for a foothold on the African continent by propping up certain regimes and destabilising others.

Once again, Africa would simply end up as a pawn.

ECOWAS dimension

ECOWAS’ sabre-rattling aimed at the Niger junta demonstrates a certain nervous determination to nip the ‘coup epidemic’ in the sub-region in its bud and prevent the ‘contagion’ from spreading, and not without an eye on the self-interests of the member states.

After all, as our elders say, if your neighbour’s beard is on fire, you fetch a bucket of water, just in case.

The irony is that in some of the ECOWAS states, the leaders are in place due to what one may call a constitutional coup.

On the other hand, the military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso are keen not to stand by and watch their fellow military government removed, because, after all, the bell could toll for them next if ECOWAS enjoys success in Niger.

Again, the elders’ saying about one’s neighbour’s beard and a bucket of water comes to mind.

France, the US and Russia are all keen on restoring the status quo or creating a new order purely for their national interests and it appears they are determined to push as far as they can towards this, probably from behind the scenes, as France and the US may not want to be seen as external aggressors.

All along, therefore, self-interest seems to be the fundamental undercurrent in this potentially explosive saga.

I do not think military intervention is a viable or sensible option for ECOWAS.

The cost of a war would not sit kindly on the fragile economies of member states, even if western support props them up.

I do not think public opinion across the subregion is in favour of such a move.

Already, the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), for instance, has stated its opposition to the sanctions imposed on Niger by ECOWAS following the coup in the country.

Reality of war

In any event, I am not sure the conditions that engendered the ECOMOG intervention in Liberia and Sierra Leone exist at present in Niger to justify military action.

With an invasion, there is the risk of getting bogged down in a convoluted process and finding it difficult to extricate, especially if the junta carries out its threat to execute former President Bazoum.

Wars are ugly, messy and unpredictable in their outcomes.

The humanitarian cost is incalculable, and in West Africa, we could end up with a refugee crisis in the event of a war in Niger.

Is ECOWAS prepared for a possible long haul? At what cost, financially and in human terms?

Can the public mood sustain the television images of the harsh reality of war in our backyard without electoral or other political consequences in the subregion?

Giving dialogue a chance

The recent news that ECOWAS had appointed Nigeria’s former military head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, to lead a delegation to Niger for mediation, accompanied by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Abubakar, is great news.

I believe it is the hope of many that a peaceful resolution will be pursued to break the impasse and get the junta to agree to a timetable for the return to constitutional rule.

As our beloved, if slightly eccentric late Latin Tutor at Opoku Ware School, Mr Acheampong (aka Latus) taught us back in the day, ‘festina lente’, which is to say, ‘hasten slowly’.

Let ECOWAS listen to Latus.