Morning Wire - Niger’s Coup Crisis: Impact on Africa & Beyond | 8.13.23

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

A coup d’etat in the West African nation of Niger is threatening to drag more than a dozen nations into war. We examine the geopolitical importance of the African nation and how the unfolding chaos there could affect the rest of the world. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Akuta Ta in the West African nation of Niger is threatening to drag more than a dozen nations into war. We proceeded to impose sanctions with the hope that this resolute measure will serve as a catalyst for the restoration of the constitutional order in Niger. On this episode of Morning Wire, we examine the geopolitical importance of the African nation and how the unfolding chaos there could affect the rest of the world. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's August 13th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Joining us to discuss the situation in Niger and how the world is reacting is Daily Wire Researcher Michael Whitaker. So, Michael, first off, can you give us a little background on Niger and what led up to this crisis? Hi, Georgia. Gladly.

Nijer is home to about 25 million people. It's a large, landlocked country in northwest Africa and is one of the poorest and least developed nations. in the world. It is also a member of ECOWAS, the economic coalition of West African states, which can be thought of as a regional equivalent to the European Union. EcoWast also has a peacekeeping component, and its members will sometimes take military action to support the existing governments of other nations, although this support is not guaranteed, and sometimes they won't. In political terms, this part of the world is fairly tumultuous, and has been for a very long time. West Africa is right on the religious fault line.

Some countries, like Nigeria, are split between Christian and Muslim groups, while others, like Niger, are overwhelmingly Muslim, but still face regular religious tensions as hard-line Islamist insurgents battle against a comparatively secular government. In either case, these militant groups often operate across borders, and many are affiliated with international terrorist groups. Boko Haram, which is most active in Nigeria, but also operates in Niger, in other neighboring countries,

is pledged to the Islamic State, while regional branches of al-Qaeda are active in Niger and neighborers, covering Molly. Simon Hankinson, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, spoke to Morningwear to help break down the situation. There are a number of terrorist groups operating in that region, including in parts of niche air, against which the various governments are fighting or cooperating depending on their politics. These problems are compounded by other regional issues. Corruption, civil wars, military takeovers and sham elections are not uncommon. But the last few years have been especially unstable. Since 2020, there have been seven military coups in the region,

including ECOWAS nations, Burkina Faso, Molly, and Guinea, and nearby nations such as Chad and Sudan. New Jersey was the most recent country that joined that list. Their democratically elected government was overthrown last month, forming a continuous chain of military junta's stretching across the continent. That coup kicked off the current crisis. So what are the specifics of this coup? Who decided to overthrow the government and why? The coup was spearheaded by a general almost. Mar Chiani, head of Niger's Presidential Guard. They're basically Niger's version of Our Secret Service, or Rome's Ritorian Guard. Their main job is to protect the president and, well, prevent exactly the kind of military coup we're seeing now. Ironically enough, they did that job

competently just a few years ago. Nizier's president, Mohamed Bazoum, was elected in 2021, in the country's first peaceful transfer of power since it declared independence from France in 1960. Some elements of the military took exception to that and attempted to seize power, But they were stopped, largely due to the efforts of the Presidential Guard. Just two years later, though, their loyalties have shifted. The immediate cause seems to be that over the past few years, the United States, the European Union, and others have injected a lot of money into counterterrorism efforts in Niger. And most of that money has gone to certain units that are not the Presidential Guard,

which is about a 700-man elite that has, I guess, for a long time thought of itself as the top dog. And some are saying that that was the immediate instigation for this was that General Chiani, who I believe is in his mid-60s and has been in charge of that unit for 12 years, was about to get the pink slip and that he acted before that could happen. So they were doing their job presumably up until now. But their loyalty clearly wasn't enough to protect the president when General Chiani decided he was going to overthrow him. And he obviously had enough support in the senior ranks of the military to take over the country. Now, what about regular citizens?

Are they broadly supportive of the official government, or is there a lot of support for this coup? It's hard to say. There have been five successful military coups in Nigerian history, so this isn't exactly unheard of. Most people will have lived through at least one. The last successful coup was in 2010. There's also some evidence that most people were unhappy with the government and were open to some kind of change. However, Sebastian Elisher, professor of political science at the University of Florida, cautioned Morningwire that just because Nigerians were not,

not fond of their old regime, does not mean necessarily that they will embrace the new one. I would argue that Nigerian citizens are more divided than is currently being portrayed. Now, it is true that a section of the Nigerian population supports the military because they are frustrated. They are frustrated because Niger has now been struggling with a jihadi insurgency on its borders with Mali and Burkina Faso. It is struggling. financially, there have been numerous corruption scandals involving the democratically elected government. And that has led to anger. And Niger's imperfect political system has been incapable of resolving these tensions.

However, I would argue that many of these people were simply fed up with the civilian government and that their anger should not be equated with support for military rule. Well, we know that ECOWAS had stated that there considering a regional war over this, given that Niger has this long history of political turbulence, and the region in general has seen quite a few coups that haven't resulted in regional wars. Why are they considering cracking down so hard on this one? That is an excellent question. Honestly, Niger just might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Ecoas didn't intervene in the wake of military takeovers in Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali.

They condemned the coups and suspended the ECOWAS membership of those nations, but stopped there. They also suspended Niger, but this time they issued an ultimatum. Ikawas demanded that Niger restore Bazzoom's government by last Sunday, and they said that they'd be willing to take military action to force the issue. If the junta in Niger stays in power, it could now seriously lead to follow-up coups in countries like Senegal and Nigeria, countries that grapple with domestic dynamics and security challenges themselves. And that would be terrible news.

for democratization and for Western Development Aid, which in the last 30 years has at least partly been driven by trying to consolidate democratic gains in those countries. And this is why ECOWAS in the Western world this time are really pushing hard for the junta to depart from power as soon as possible and for reinstating a civilian government. Whatever the reason, it does not look like Miserra's going to get off of a strongly worded letter. Right.

Nigeria, by far the bloc's largest member, and the main supplier of Niger's electricity, shut down power exports to the country, causing mass blackouts and grinding large parts of the economy to a halt. New Zealand seems undeterred, though. They blew past the Sunday deadline and closed their airspace in response to ECOWAS's threats. The military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso have also made it clear that they support Niger and will treat any attack on it as an act of war. On Thursday, senior leadership from all active ECOWAS nations met in Nigeria to discuss their option. Here's Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tanubu. It is our duty to exhaust all avenues of engagement to ensure a swift return to constitutional governance in Egypt.

The ECOWAS is insisting that while it is exploring all options and would prefer this elderly issue diplomatically, they are willing to use force. Now, how would all of this affect the United States or would it? Are there any Western interests that could draw the U.S. and or Europe into any conflict there? Well, we have some interests there, but probably not enough to get directly involved. Here's Harkinson again. Whenever you have a country that's falling apart, either from the inside or from the outside, a country like the United States that has interests all over the world

has to make a choice. And it's really only three options. You either fix it, which means you send in troops, you take it over, you defend whatever government or replace it. You find someone else to do the job, like the French or ECOWAS, this community of West African states, or you forget about it and hope that it doesn't in any way affect our interests. And I would say that Niger sort of falls into the second category. After our recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't see any appetite for boots on the ground other than the thousand or so we already have there. The U.S. currently has two military bases and about a thousand troops on the ground in Niger, mostly for training, intelligence gathering, and counterterrorism operations. Obviously, we aren't big fans of ISIS or al-Qaeda,

and with the consent of Niger, we've been using those bases to launch drone strikes across the region. We've also given the Nigerians hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid. Blinken, our Secretary of State, was there in March. He was announcing $150 million in direct assistance, and he called Niger a model of democracy. Well, obviously, that didn't last long. That's important because foreign aid accounts for about 40% of Nigerra's budget. Most Western nations have pulled their support since the coup, so that could cause serious damage to the government in the long run. Western nations have also issued travel advisors and begun with drawing civilians from the country

in preparation for a possible war. It's also worth noting that France is about as involved in the country as we are, if not more. They have as many as 1,500 troops there. If Western forces lose access to the country, it could take pressure off the insurgents, who won't have to worry so much about French and American bombs or special operatives. Not to mention, every soldier the ECOWAS nations send against each other is a soldier who isn't fighting Islamist insurgents, which could make the region even more vulnerable to future violence.

Now, that certainly could become a long-term problem. Now, aside from ISIS and al-Qaeda, who else might stand to benefit from a regional power vacuum? Is anyone likely to step in to fill the void? Well, economically, Niger isn't the most crucial ground of the world. They're poor and underdeveloped, and they don't have much in the way of unique resources. Since they're landlocked, their only access to international waters is true of their neighbors.

Most of them are eco-west members. They are the world's seventh largest supplier of uranium, which is a crucial fuel source for nuclear power and nuclear weapons. But in the grand scheme of things, raw uranium is actually fairly common. If Niger stops exporting uranium, other countries will probably pick up the slack. As far as nuclear weapons go, refining fossil material is a much greater obstacle in finding it. So there isn't much of an immediate security threat there either. The Nigerian regime might think it has leverage, but Professor Ellisher says that they may be overplaying their hand.

I think what the coup plotters and what many commentators that are supportive of the coup are insinuating here is that Niger is irreplaceable for the West, that the West is only after these resources. That's an inaccurate description of the situation. Interestingly, though, the Russians might stand a benefit from the regime change, although some of that would be a PR win more than a material one. While replacing the West in the country could be a diplomatic coup. Recent statements suggest that Russia is not entirely on board of regime change, and its senior leadership is not of one mind on the issue.

The Russian foreign minister of Sergei Lavrov actually called for a return to constitution, order. Wagner mercenaries, by contrast, have welcomed the coup and interpret this as a kind of struggle against French or American neocolonialism. Now, what about immigration? Is there any concern that unrest in Niger could lead to an additional wave of migration, either to Europe or to other parts of the world? Oh, absolutely. Mass migration is a major concern. And there is good historical precedent that war can open the floodgates by destabilizing borders. Niger is important for the European Union. because it is a major transit hub for immigrants that are crossing the Sahara into the Mediterranean.

And Niger has received extensive funding from the European Union in order to help stop that flow of immigration. So this is for the Western world really about security interests and migration interests rather than interests in raw materials. We saw a similar spike in migration after Libya and Syria spiraled into civil war in the 20th. 2010s and when Russia invaded Ukraine. All right. Well, Michael, thanks so much for ringing us this story. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire researcher Michael Whitaker. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.