Niger Coup: Embrace Diplomacy, Not War, Experts Warn Tinubu

Security experts have warned Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu against going to war with Niger, but instead seek diplomacy with the junta which is currently holding siege of power in Niger as a means to resolving the crises in the country. Sunday Ehigiator reports

Niger President Mohamed Bazoum was deposed on July 26, 2023, in a coup led by his presidential guards.

ECOWAS leaders at a meeting in Abuja four days later gave the coup leaders a seven-day ultimatum to restore constitutional order or face the possible use of force. The regional body imposed sanctions on the coup leaders with Nigeria also cutting electricity supplies and closing its borders with the poor West African nation.

Following the refusal of the coup leaders to backtrack even after the now-expired ECOWAS ultimatum, West African defence chiefs said they had drawn a plan for military action as part of which President Tinubu wrote the Senate for permission to involve Nigerian troops in the action.

However, at an executive session on Saturday, August 5, the senators rejected the request by the president.

According to a senator who attended the meeting, senators agreed to pass a resolution condemning the coup and to commend ECOWAS leaders on their efforts to restore constitutional order in Niger, but they ruled out military options, just as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Security Experts have also done.

No winner in war

Speaking with THISDAY, a Retired Comptroller, of Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, Chukwuemeka Patrick Pius, popularly known as CPP, said the situation in Niger will become more devastating should Nigeria decides to go to war, as nobody benefits from the war in the true sense of the world.

According to him, “First of all, I’ll be speaking from the backdrop of my being a student of history and philosophy, and also law and diplomacy for which I have a master’s degree, I believe that it was poorly and badly handled from the onset.

“I don’t think a lot of circumspection was brought to play. War is a last resort after diplomacy has failed. Some scholars define war as an extension of diplomacy. So war is part of the diplomatic process.

“If we now go down to what is happening in the Niger Republic, I believe that giving an ultimatum even without first engaging in dialogue was an act of war, it’s a preparation for war.

“The very first day that ECOWAS gave them a 7-day ultimatum; it’s a declaration of war. So from that moment, the Nigeriens put themselves in a war setting. They knew very well that it has been declared not to forget that some people were sending letters to legislative bodies that have the power to give the go-ahead or not, they’re aware of that and they know very well that if that go-ahead is given the next thing is for hostilities to commence.

“So something happened one day, and the following day people are given an ultimatum and the rest of it. Now let us look at the sovereignty of nations. What is happening there is the internal affairs of the Nigeriens so let us first of all be looking at what the problem is.

“If people sit down and ask themselves what is going on, what is the problem? And ask the parties involved “Why is this, why is it not so? You will discover that in the whole of Africa. That is what we are practising, forcing democracies or dictatorships of civilians.

“If you take the average African country and juxtapose their military dictatorship experience and the civilian democratic experience, you’ll find little or no difference and Africans are beginning to realise this and you see the wave of dissatisfaction and people trying to seek help through some other means.

“The people are talking about coups, let us be very frank with ourselves, coups have been happening in Africa even after the militaries have been sent to barracks, coups have been happening.

“You want to change your constitution to spend more than the year that is permitted by the constitution you swore to uphold, you begin to change fundamental laws like your tenure and the rest of it and you’re going to be the beneficiary.

“Don’t forget that in our case in Nigeria, it has been tested by two leaders, that Obasanjo’s regime was an open one, and that of President Jonathan was a technical extension of his tenure to six years.

“So you find African leaders or rulers as I’d prefer to call them, to overstay their welcome and it creates agitations and then they use the instrument of states, instruments of coercion, the legislative system, the judiciary system to put a stamp of authority on what is happening.”

External influences and need for Afrocentric solution

CPP posited that what is happening on the African continent was largely due to influences from outside of the continent, and powers that have an interest in African resources. He, therefore, posited that there was a need for an Afrocentric conflict resolution method in resolving the crises

According to him, “These are the powers that are beating the drum that either ECOWAS or Nigerians or Nigeriens are dancing to.

“Africa over the years has decided to make itself the state within willing tools for external powers that are using the African countries to achieve their global or national interests.

“If you read between the lines you’ll begin to see that the Russians, Americans, French etc. are somewhere, they are putting pressure on somebody or some persons to do this, to do XYZ. And if we fall for it without using Afrocentric means of conflict resolution, we will keep dancing to the World views and aspirations of external forces and we would end up fighting other people’s wars thinking that we’re fighting our wars.

“So the interests for any perceptive scholar of international relations are so clear. Why is it that a country that is larger than Nigeria but poorer than Nigeria, less populated than Nigeria mostly in the Sahel Sahara is all of a sudden very important?

“It is because the raw and basic material for nuclear reactors and everything that has to do with nuclear science and the rest of it is in the bill; that is the price.

“In Nigeria, the price during the civil war and even now is oil. So without it, the British would not go to the extent of supporting federal forces, and other countries would not care about whether Africans are killing themselves or not, it is all to protect their interests.

“So the issue of whether or not we should go to war and the rest of it would not have arisen if due process was followed, and if people had sought advice from well-meaning Nigerians and experts in the field.”

The military rule offers no positive solution

Also speaking with THISDAY on the crisis, The Executive Director of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Okechukwu Nwanguma said the military takeover of government in African countries cannot solve the people’s agitation for a better country.

According to him, “Before the military coup in Niger, there have been coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea Conakry, all in West Africa. At the moment, six West African countries are under military rule, indicative of a democratic recession in West Africa.

“This is not good for the democratic aspirations and struggles to entrench democracy in Africa. While most of these coups are inspired by bad governance, I do not think that military rule offers any positive solution to the tragedy of bad governance in Africa.

“What is required is for people to be empowered to take back their countries from the grips of corrupt, visionless and incompetent political leaders. Every necessary and legitimate measure should be taken to restore and entrench democracy and avoid the pitfalls that provide the pretext for military intervention.”

Dialogue and diplomacy are better than war

Speaking further on the best means to address the Niger situation, CPP said, “This morning I was going through the news newspapers and I read that the government is meeting with governors of the Northern states, especially those on the borderline States.

“For crying out loud these are things that should have been done from ab-initio because to levy war on the country is no tea party affair. Lives are going to be lost; people are going to be displaced.

“You may start the war and have the upper hand at the beginning but as time goes on you begin to discover that the other party too will begin to gain ground. Look at the Ukrainian-Russian war, just look at a superpower like Russia, that war has been going on for how many years now.

“They had the advantage; they overran their territory and the rest of them, yes. The first shock will come, the people will now try as much as possible to defend themselves to a particular point after which there’s going to be a stalemate and then they will begin to counterattack and the rest of it.

“There’s no small country when it comes to war today and there’s no big country. When you underrate any country in war, then you’re making a very big mistake because what you know they know it too and then people will come to their aid based on the fact that they’re being oppressed and somebody said that because he’s bigger than them he can overrun them and abuse them how they like.

“People will come to the aid of the weak one way or the other. So Nigeria must allow reason to prevail over brute force, coercion and threat. Dialogue and diplomacy is always the better option to war.”