GENERAL Abdourahamane Tchiani, the Nigerien military leader may be shouting wolf where none exists. Nigeria has always played the role of a supportive Big Brother to her West African neighbours. Niger and Nigeria have harmonious economic and diplomatic relations, and there is a strong cultural tie.
Niger receives several economic and political benefits from Nigeria.
Nigeria is a major supplier of dry grains to Niger, providing 60–70% of the country’s imports. The two countries have had economic cooperation since the 1970s, including in areas like transportation, oil and gas, electricity supply and aids. The Nigeria-Niger Joint Commission for Cooperation (NNJCC) was established in 1971 to promote economic cooperation and sustainable development.
If the countries that are leaving France and embracing Russia show better prospects of growth, then bad days are here for France. Tchiani knows that France is desperate and a drowning person can clutch on a straw. There is no morality in international politics and a world power like France can leverage on its might to push her interest.
Although it is normal for a person to be afraid of someone who is a friend of his enemy. If the man who has destroyed several people becomes your bosom friend, people might begin to suspect you. The story of France in Africa is not palatable. It is a sad story of deceit, exploitation, cheating, fraud, greed and wickedness.
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Most French colonies have realised the negative, humiliating and exploitative impact of French colonial rule. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have taken the lead in taking their destiny in their own hands. In a little while, the rest of Francophone West Africa will follow that route. Initial move that was made by Gbagbo was nipped in the bud with excessive propaganda promoted by the West.
If French colonies in Africa are scared of France and are trying to extricate themselves from France’s colonial or neo-colonial noose, Nigeria stands to benefit nothing from France. The smiles of Macron do not display a new face of French foreign policy in Africa. Macron is a representative of the ruling class, and if his actions are at variance with the position of the French ruling class, he will be thrown out of power. Any president from sub-Sahara Africa that is in romance with France can only attract suspicion to himself. The accusations by General Tchiani alleging a conspiracy between Nigeria and France to destabilise his country may lack merit, but President Ahmed Tinubu’s relationship with France is what Tchiani is probably afraid of.
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As West Africans, we cannot be in a hurry to forget what France did to Guinea at independence, when the people refused to accept French conditions for independence.
The French left en masse, depriving the country of all technical expertise and worse, removing all key government files, even ripping out office telephones, and burning medicines. In foreign policy, the only thing that matters to France is France.
Students of international history and geopolitics will not forget in a hurry the role France played in Vietnam. How it wanted to go back to Vietnam after Second World War to re-colonise an independent country, but was defeated by revolutionary army from North Vietnam, and it tried to make the world believe that it was a struggle against the spread of socialism and communist ideology, just to attract the support of its Western allies.
France did not only refuse to extend diplomatic recognition to Guinea, it suspended all further assistance to Guinea, and pressured Western countries not to accept Guinea’s independence, even though it was the result of a referendum on September 28, 1958, where Guinea was the only French West African colony to vote overwhelmingly for independence.
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The junta in Niger is aware that France is not happy with Russia’s increasing influence in Francophone Africa, especially in Niger where the loss of Orano, a French company that has mined uranium in the that country for years, making huge fortune and the people have nothing to show for it, leaves a sour taste in the history of Niger.
If the countries that are leaving France and embracing Russia show better prospects of growth, then bad days are here for France. Tchiani knows that France is desperate and a drowning person can clutch on a straw. There is no morality in international politics and a world power like France can leverage on its might to push her interest.
Students of international history and geopolitics will not forget in a hurry the role France played in Vietnam. How it wanted to go back to Vietnam after Second World War to re-colonise an independent country, but was defeated by revolutionary army from North Vietnam, and it tried to make the world believe that it was a struggle against the spread of socialism and communist ideology, just to attract the support of its Western allies. Countries that supported France, especially America, paid dearly for it. If Nigeria had gone to war with Niger Republic because of France, we would have regretted it.
While it’s difficult to believe General Tchiani, it is also not good to completely ignore him. We are aware that a lot of illegal mining activities have been going on in Northern Nigeria. A popular school of thought believes that behind some of the Killings in Northern Nigeria are as a result of illegal mining conflicts. As patriotic as our security sector is, we are yet to know the masked men behind the killings and the illegal mining.
