Analysis of the dilemma of ECOWAS’ proposed intervention in Niger, 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 or just simply sit by to observe caution.

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.

Similarly, this is in context of the recent reports, that Gen. Tchiani’s has added an automatic twist in rounding up about 180 officials of the former government of President Bazoum.

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Additionally, there have been calls for ECOWAS and, of course, Nigeria to leave the task of intervention to the US and France, which already have military bases in Niger.

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 standing by without 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) ECOMOG contigents that changed the war equations and finally brought peace to Liberia.

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, 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 and in the outbreak of civil wars.

It is to say that there have been similar occurrences in the ECOMOG and the 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 defeated.

This called to mind between 1991 and 2002, the era of former ECOMOG Force Commanders …late Brigadier-Generals Timothy Mai Shelpidi and Shagaya both of whom commanded 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 Koroma 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 Tejan Kabbah declared the Sierra Leone Civil War had finally ended.

Though, as argued by many analysts, most of the conditions that inevitably gave rise to coups and the military intervention forces deployed to suppress them continue to be on the rise within the region, the recent events and within the context of rogue parties joining forces to destabilise the region remains unfortunately on the wrong side of history.

In conclusion, the current Niger anti-coup, pro-democracy, and pro-stability intervention (that is, if the Gen. Tchiani coupists reuse to relinquish power) 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, and we will return to write the ECOWAS’ success stories again.

● Jide Olatuyi is an International Development Consultant and the executive director at the POLICY CONSULT in Abuja.