AS a foreign affairs journalist I’m often asked one particular question whenever some far-off crisis flares up.
Usually the refrain goes something along the lines of: “Why should we care? Why should events in a place so far removed from our own as it’s possible to imagine be deserving of a single moment of our attention?”
The recent coup in the West African country of Niger is just the latest case in point.
Impoverished, territorially vast but sparsely populated and seemingly distant, it would probably not be inaccurate to say that until recently when it hit the headlines, many of us might have had difficulty locating Niger on a world map or perhaps mistaken it for its much more recognisable and powerful neighbour Nigeria.
There are many answers as to why we should be paying attention as to what’s unfolding in Niger right now.
One of them is illustrated by the chants of some pro-coup supporters in Niger’s capital Niamey in the days after the military takeover on July 25 whose rallying call was “Down with France” and “Up with Russia”.
On the face of it the trigger for the putsch was that of any age-old power struggle, in this case between Niger’s president Mohamed Bazoum and the military chief meant to protect him, general Abdourahamane Tchiani, who has since been installed as head of state.
But today more than ever we live in a world of geopolitics.
It’s one that has many components ranging from perceived spheres of influence to access and acquisition of natural resources right through to the impact of climate change and migration. Niger, to put it in a nutshell, is a country that sits at the epicentre of all of these.
Much has been made of Niger’s coup simply being a face-off between the West and Russia.
But those anti-French and pro-Russian chants on the streets of Niamey tell only part of the story.
Yes, there’s little doubt that the Kremlin and Russian president Vladimir Putin would like nothing better than to establish what European diplomats call a “second front” south of the Mediterranean.
To that end, Putin might even be prepared to put his differences with Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary Wagner group and their recently attempted mutiny over the war in Ukraine to one side in order to achieve that.
But it would be wrong to misinterpret any pro-Russian or Wagner sentiment on the streets of Niamey as mass support for the coup.
If indeed Niger is only the latest example of Russia’s footprint extending in the Sahel region, then it has as much to do with Western shortcomings and failures as it has an assertive Moscow.
To begin with, in a predominantly Francophone region, France’s policy of meddling in its former colonies has only created growing resentment across the Sahel.
That much was evident when it was forced to abandon its military bases in Niger’s neighbouring countries Mali and Burkina Faso following coups there.
In both cases, France wanted to achieve its aim of defeating Islamist extremists and Jihadists by military means, a strategy local leaders grew tired of and who instead wanted to secure political solutions through dialogue.
As a number of West African observers have pointed out, French politicians didn’t seem to realise that times have changed and that the old colonial way of doing business was over.
Just like British colonial rule, the French had long-established political systems designed to extract valuable resources while using repressive strategies to retain control.
If France has played its hand in the region clumsily then the United States likewise has been all about taking with little in long-term giving to the countries across the Sahel and indeed across sub-Saharan Africa as a whole.
FOR decades now Europe and the United States have been guilty of viewing Africa purely through the prism of which countries will fall in behind Paris, Washington, Brussels or London in maintaining Western influence and power.
That is precisely what’s happening in Niger right now as suddenly France and the US see the potential to have the rug pulled from beneath their presence there.
You have to ask yourself what Westerns diplomats have been doing all these years given how easily their nations are falling out of favour. If Africa mattered that much to Europe and America, why are more solid relations not in place?
Why have they not offered more in the way of investment that would help some of the most natural resource-rich countries in the world transform their own economies for once rather than super feeding those of rich “developed” nations?
During the many years that I have spent visiting and working in African countries including Niger, I (like so many other observers) have watched as Europe and the US all but ignored Africa’s potential and strategic importance, instead simply regarding the continent as a political basket case or overblown humanitarian problem.
Invariably this has involved penalising African countries when they are perceived to have stepped out of line – as in Niger right now – or rewarding them only when they play the Western game.
Seen against that backdrop what we are witnessing in Niger right now is no more a revolt against French neo-colonialism than it is an embracing of Moscow’s effort to widen its own sphere of influence.
Instead, it should be seen as a crucial moment in intra-Africa politics. That is why it is vital that this crisis is resolved not by Western heavy-handedness or bringing ill-considered diplomatic influence and clout to bear, but by fully engaging with Niger, its neighbours and the 15-strong Economic Community of West African States.
That it will be a major test for this African union, which has a long record of trying to uphold democratic norms in the region, goes without saying.
Military intervention is not the route to do down, not least when diplomacy remains a viable option.
If there is a lesson here for the West, it’s that years of using countries in Africa as mere military hubs or bases and providing security assistance is not enough.
Much broader support to address the root causes of unrest in these countries is the only way to go and also help counter the threat from the Jihadist groups that – far from being dismantled in the Sahel – are in fact thriving.
Yes, Russia might be waiting in the wings, but the West has only itself to blame for being at best limited and unambitious in its engagement with the African continent for so long.
All of this is why we should care about what happens in Niger.
