By ERIC BAZAIL
A lot of Western media coverage of Niger’s coup has focused on the implications for the country’s European and American allies. But today we’re going to home in on the perhaps more important consequences for neighboring Nigeria, West Africa’s local hegemon, and its newly-elected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
West Africa has seen a number of other coups in recent years and as president of the continent’s most populous country, Tinubu has taken on a critical leadership role. He also last month became chair of the Economic Community of West African States, which Nigeria helped to create and has traditionally been Africa’s most effective regional forum at resolving conflicts, but has recently struggled in its efforts to return countries in revolt to democracy.
What happens in Niger is a test for Tinubu’s foreign policy and for ECOWAS.
“Not only will failure to act send a signal that Tinubu and ECOWAS can only bark, but not bite, it will embolden military adventurers in other West African countries as well as the Russia-backed Wagner Group,” Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Global Insider.
Nigeria, with its oil wealth and large military, has been the leading power in West Africa since the end of the late 1960s, often setting the direction of regional integration and cooperation efforts. Successful ECOWAS interventions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Gambia and elsewhere have largely been attributed to strong Nigerian leadership.
But Nigeria’s influence has been slipping in recent years, as it grapples with economic malaise and security challenges that festered under the prior president, Muhammadu Buhari. Since succeeding Buhari, Tinubu has been trying to placate different religious and ethnic groups at home upset over the February election results, which the opposition has disputed.
ECOWAS has also been criticized for its response to the prior coups in West Africa, including in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022. ECOWAS suspended all three countries’ memberships after negotiations to return the countries to civilian rule broke down. But the suspensions have done little to nudge them back toward democracy. Many observers attribute this string of recent failures to an absence of Nigerian leadership under Buhari.
For now, Tinubu and ECOWAS seem to recognize the challenge they face. Last week, Tinubu dispatched Beninese President Patrice Talon to Niger’s capital of Niamey as an ECOWAS mediator with the interim military government. Convening an emergency meeting of ECOWAS heads of state in Abuja on Sunday, Tinubu also took a more forceful tone than many of his predecessors, saying “there’s no more time for us to send a warning signal.”
ECOWAS leaders have issued an ultimatum to Niger’s military government after the emergency meeting, saying in a statement they “will take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force.”
First published in Politico.com
