By Jide OLATUYI
In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve read many analyses in support of the Nigeria-led ECOWAS on the strength of its honour to commitment to anti-coup stance in West Africa to intervene and restore the Bazoum administration in Niger Republic. Others have rightly so argued on the need to thread the path of caution.
The dilemma now seems to be whether to fulfil the commitment to honour pledged assurances or just simply sit by to observe with caution, especially with the internal socio-economic and political challenges of the Bola Tinubu led administration in Nigeria.
The call for caution is very apt, mostly on the side of the finances, international geo-political interests and strategic guidance in prosecuting the proposed intervention mission…especially with the touted support the Nigérien putschists seem to be garnering from fellow rogue military putschists in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
This is even in the context of the recent reports that Gen. Tchiani’s has added an autocratic twist to his hold on power by rounding up about 180 officials of the former government of President Bazoum. More tyranny acts are likely to unfold in the next few days
Additionally, there have been calls for ECOWAS and, of course, Nigeria to leave the task of political intervention to the US and France, which already have military bases in Niger.
Apart from the neo-colonial, neo-imperialist bend of this position, in my past experience as a peace and conflict (Development) journalist in Liberia in the early 1990s, I don’t see the Americans who remained on the shores of the Atlantic in Monrovia those years standing by without either committing troops, nor finances nor helping in intervening in the hostile conflicts in Liberia that dangerously engulfed the poor nation at the time. I recall that it was the arrival of the Nigerian Battalion 1 (NIBAT 1 and II) of the ECOMOG contingents that boldly and decisively changed the war equations and finally brought peace and stability to Liberia and to West Africa before the unfortunate current reversals.
As strategic as Ukraine could be to NATO, the Americans can at best only offer to supply weapons and finances but never commit troops.
Now, with the growing insecurity, insurgency, and the anti-France sentiments all over the French West African countries, the prospects of a French unilateral intervention in Niger are very, very slim even if it is allowed. But, who will allow that to happen at this time?
Going further, the Gen. Tchiani led junta in Niger has also received an unwavering endorsement from the notorious Russian Wagner group destabilising parts of West and Central Africa.
These supports have emboldened the coupists in Niger to issue ECOWAS and its collaborators, stiff warning on the impending intervention.
With a maximum of two weeks, ultimatums issued by ECOWAS and the AU, the stage is set for actions that would make or mar the resolution of resisting the scourge of coup d’états and other forms of unconstitutional change of governments in West Africa.
These dilemmas and grandstanding are not new in the history of ECOWAS peacekeeping, peace-enforcement and international intervention missions in West Africa…most especially considering the antecedents of coups, counter-coups, election squabbles, hostile conflicts and in the outbreak of civil wars.
It is to say that there have been similar occurrences in the ECOMOG and its mutated corollary, the ECOWAS STANDBY FORCE (ESF) missions, which were largely successful in the Gambia, in Liberia, Sierra-Leone, etc.
For instance, in the specific case of the Sierra-Leonean civil war and the ECOWAS intervention, similar scenarios played out where both internal and external forces in joint cooperation confronted the ECOMOG forces but were all successfully defeated.
This called to mind between 1991 and 2002, the era of former ECOMOG Force Commanders …late Major-Generals Timothy Mai Shelpidi and John Shagaya both of whom commanded the ECOMOG when the group routed AFRC/RUF rebels from Freetown and restored the elected Kabbah government.
The scenarios were a bit far more complex and far more critical than the current context where the RUF was backed by Liberia (at the time under the control of Charles Taylor), Libya, and Burkina Faso.
In March 1995, the Sierra Leone government hired Executive Outcomes (EO), a South Africa-based mercenary group (like the Russian Wagner group) to defeat the RUF. Meanwhile, Sierra Leone installed an elected civilian government in March 1996, and the retreating RUF signed the Abidjan Peace Accord, which brought an end to the fighting. In May 1997, however, a group of Sierra Leone Army officers staged a coup and established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) as the new government of the country.
They invited the RUF to join them, and the two factions now ruled Freetown, the nation’s capital, with little resistance.
The new government under Johnny Paul Koroma declared the war over. Yet looting, rape, and murder mostly by RUF forces quickly followed the new government’s announcement and illustrated its weakness. ECOMOG forces returned and retook Freetown on behalf of the Tejan Kabbah government but could not pacify outlying regions. The RUF continued the civil war.
In January 1999, world leaders intervened to promote negotiations between the RUF and the government. The Lome Peace Accord was signed on July 7, 1999. That agreement gave Foday Sankoh, the commander of the RUF, the vice presidency and control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines in return for a cessation of the fighting and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to monitor the disarmament process. RUF compliance with the disarmament process was inconsistent and sluggish, and by May 2000, the rebels were again advancing on Freetown.
However, with help from ECOWAS, the United Nations forces, British troops, and Guinean air support, the Sierra Leone Army finally defeated the RUF before they could take control of Freetown On January 18, 2002, newly installed President Ahmad Tedjan Kabbah declared the Sierra Leone Civil War had finally ended.
Though, as argued by many analysts, most of the socio-economic and political conditions that inevitably gave rise to coups and the military intervention forces deployed to suppress them continue to be on the rise within West Africa and indeed Africa, the recent events and within the context of rogue parties joining forces to destabilise the region remains unfortunately on the wrong side of history.
The çoup in Niger at this time is a needless one.
In conclusion, the current Niger anti-coup, pro-democracy, and pro-stability intervention with its own peculiar challenges, will no doubt come and go and will help to successfully whittle down the influence of the destabilising groups in the region It will close the gaps in the spaces, not governed, as well as the weaknesses (the vacuums) therein…requiring the strategic support of all peace, security and stability partners including the international stakeholders.
This may also be the beginning of holding ECOWAS leaders more accountable on democracy and good governance, and we will hopefully return to write the ECOWAS success stories again after the Niger intervention….that is, if the Gen. Tchiani coupists refuse to relinquish power.
Jide Olatuyi is an International Development Consultant and the executive director at the POLICY CONSULT in Abuja