The Catholic Bishops of West Africa, a consortium of representatives of sixteen episcopal conferences, published a press release on August 8, warning against armed intervention in Niger: “We affirm and insist to ECOWAS and the African Union that any military intervention in Niger at this time would complicate the situation of the people of Niger and the sub-region more than it would provide solutions,” African prelates said.
“[Islamist] terrorism already has a macabre toll of widows, orphans, displaced persons, the hungry, the maimed and so on. People are not expecting the regional, and African and other institutions to add to this toll.”
An intervention within the framework of ECOWAS would risk creating, according to the episcopal press release, another “Libya,” which “remains a tragic example of the disastrous consequences on the life, dignity, and future of the populations.” They recall how the destabilization of Libya by military intervention in 2011 threw the country into chaos and breathed new life into the jihadist militias.
The Bishops of Africa remain cautious, refraining from condemning the July 26 coup, because the Nigerien army has a long tradition of military coups. Thus, the day before his inauguration, President Mohamed Bazoum, who had just borne the brunt of the last coup, had escaped an attempted overthrow; and quite recently, another attempt was reportedly foiled while the head of state was in Turkey.
“The army is a political actor in its own right, and the political system seems less and less responsive to the demands of the population: the party in power [before the putsch] – the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) – is not a party of compromise, but of domination,” explains Rahman Idrissa, lecturer-researcher at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
According to Idrissa, “the PNDS has a share of responsibility in the coup d’état” which he describes as an “opportunist putsch inspired by those that took place in Mali and Burkina Faso,” exploiting the Nigerien population’s discontent with the economic and security situation – jihadist activities in the southwest and southeast – and resentment towards France, considered a scapegoat for the country’s ills.
Rahman Idrissa believes that at present “the influence of Paris and Washington, which insist on a total restoration of Bazoum, is harmful.” A solution, according to him, would be to “return to a Nigerien tradition: the coup contributes to the reinvention and renewal of the political process, like a computer that is restarted.”
It is a solution that does not seem to have been ruled out either by the bishops of the region who, in conclusion of their intervention, call on all parties to “work together to build a future of peace and prosperity for our region and Africa as a whole.”
Let us hope that the Niger Catholics will not bear the brunt of the geopolitical stakes opposing the great economic and military powers that have made Africa their playground.
The ultimatum issued by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the illegitimate military junta to return confiscated power to the legitimate civilian government on July 26, 2023, has raised fears among the region’s bishops of escalation that could transform the country into a “second Libya.”