By Jude Ndeh Asah
The mutual defense pact, the military leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger signed last September 16, is arguably a decisive kink to put paid to what observers call France’s neocolonial domineering presence in the Sahel region. It marks the sour state of a paramour that has sired only wanton exploitation of enormous natural resources for the benefit of ruling class and their foreign allies, while the people wallow in want and deprivation.
Known as the Liptako-Gourma Charter, the pact establishes the Alliance of the three Sahel states. It indicates that Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are each other’s keeper and would respond collectively if any of them is attacked. For one thing, the alliance seems to be a tacit response to fears that troops of Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, backed by France, will attack Niger. But for growing public opinion against the bid, ECOWAS under its current leader, Nigeria’s President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, had planned to launch a military offensive against Niger’s junta in order to re-install President Mohammed Bazoum in power.
Both France and ECOWAS condemned the military coup that ousted Niger’s supposedly democratically elected leader, President Mohammed Bazoum last July 26. While commenting on the alliance in a tweet, Mali’s Junta leader, Col. Assima Goita said: the alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries.
The three military leaders did not fully react to observations that they were chasing away France which is a reliable ally in the fight against terrorism. The Liptako-Gourma border area where the alliance was signed, is the citadel of Jihadist insurgences that erupted in Northern Mali in 2012 and spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.
Political watchers have qualified the triple alliance as the arch nemesis of ECOWAS and France that seem to be losing out in a mental exercise on how to dislodge Niger’s Junta and reinstall President Bazoum. The pact partly reads as follows: “Any attack on the sovereignty and national integration of one or more contracting parties shall be considered as an aggression against all the other parties and shall give rise to a duty of assistance, including the use of armed forces to restore security.”
Since 2020, all three countries have suffered military coups in which soldiers overthrew democratically elected presidents. The recent coups in Niger and Gabon, have provoked a lot of tongue-wagging to the effect that France is facing the nemesis for its domineering presence in most of its former colonies in Africa. The coup in Guinea Conakry, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger seem to carry the potency of a stern warnings that it was time for France to stop “farming” in Francophone Africa.
The ousting of the French Ambassadors in these countries lays bare the end of a marriage of convenience between the two parties. The diplomatic altercation between France and Niger came to a head recently when French President, Emmanuel Macron, refused to recognize the Military Junta as Niger’s legitimate authority.
French influence over its former colonies in West Africa has petered out dramatically in recent years. Its forces have been kicked out of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, thereby reducing its role in the fight against Islamic insurgencies. France’s military base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, had become the object of anti-French protest after the staging of the July 26 coup.
Talk was rife that the Sahel countries were dumping their former colonial master, France, in favour of a new suitor called Russia. Small wonder that pro-coup demonstrators in Niger were seen waving Russian flags, while calling on the French troops to leave their country. This situation is fueling fears among Western countries that Niger could emulate Mali by replacing their troops with fighters of the Russian mercenary group, Wagner.
Given the fact that anti-French sentiments are running riot, President Macron has said France will pull its soldiers out of Niger. This will be a damper on French influence and counter-insurgency operating in the Sahel Region. The over 60-year love affair in which France has maintained strong economic, military and humanitarian aid ties with its former colonies, is fading out dramatically. This development, analysts say, is exacerbating Western specter of Russia’s expanding influence in Africa. It is equally fuelled by reports that Russian Mercenary force, Wagner, has established firmly in Niger’s neighbor, Mali, ready to strike in the wake of any eventuality.
After seizing power, the leaders of the military juntas in the Sahel Region, have promised to improve security and look beyond their traditional allies for support. While addressing the U.N. General Assembly recently, the head of Guinea’s Junta, Col. Mamadi Doumbouya, said the recent military coups in Africa represent an attempt by soldiers to save their countries from the broken promises of unscrupulous civilian leaders. Hear him: “The coup plotter is not only the person who takes up arms to overthrow a regime. I want us all to be well aware of the fact that the real putchists, the most numerous, are those who avoid any condemnation-they are those…who cheat to manipulate the text of the constitution in order to stay in power eternally.”
As anti-French sentiments in Francophone Africa peak, analysts say events are marking the beginning of an end to an incestuous affair between France and its former colonies that is said to be largely responsible for underdevelopment and the stunted growth of democracy in the continent. The phenomenon in which former French colonies are shaking off the burden of neocolonial yoke from their shoulders, has triggered what is referred to as the second scramble for Africa with Russia and China wading in as a formidable counter forces against the West. Against this backdrop, there is growing panic among some conservative neocolonial puppet leaders who have oppressed the people and suppressed their aspirations for long. They want to maintain the status quo for selfish reasons. Small wonder that allegations of a military coup in Congo Brazzaville recently, shook the over 40-year old Denis Sassou Nguessou regime into vicious wrath.
The panic seems to be the main pandemic in the CEMAC region that is made up of former French colonies with the exception of Equatorial Guinea. Following what Afro-barometer qualifies as the full sway of Cameroonians in favour of a military coup to dislodge the dictatorship in place, the government of Cameroon has issued an order prohibiting its citizens and the media from making any comments about the likelihood of a coup d’état in the country.
In wake of this euphoria, some human rights activists have expressed fears that if the former French colonies choose to do business exclusively with Russia and China, it would spell doom for citizens because these countries do not pay so much attention to the respect for human rights, democracy and the rule law. The situation is, indeed, dicey. Democracy is, indeed, standing trial in Francophone Africa.
