Four days after the expiry of the ultimatum set for the Nigerien putschists, when the junta has formed a government and attempts at negotiation have failed, ECOWAS is meeting again on Thursday August 10 at an exceptional summit in Abuja. At the end of July, the Community of West African States, chaired by Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu, showed unprecedented firmness, raising the threat of military intervention.
But faced with the inflexibility of the putschists, the support they enjoy from the Malian and Burkinabé regimes, and the unpopularity of such an operation among a large part of the populations of the region, this possibility seems to less and less likely.
While he was one of the spearheads, Bola Tinubu – who said on July 30: “One of us is being held hostage by his presidential guard. It’s an insult to all of us. We must act firmly to restore democracy” – has since softened his positions. His spokesperson thus recalled on Tuesday that diplomacy remained the “best way” to resolve the crisis. “No options were ruled out,” he said, however.
Elected in February and sworn in in May, the Nigerian president has only been at the head of ECOWAS for a month and is already facing serious difficulties in Nigeria. “Nigeria is going through a very difficult social and economic situation, observes from Ibadan, in the south-west of Nigeria, Cyrielle Maingraud-Martinaud, researcher at the French Institute for Research in Africa (Ifra-Nigeria). The country’s situation is catastrophic, inflation is incredible, the impoverishment of the middle class strong, and generalized insecurity. »
Major politician of his generation, with a troubled past – the origin of his great fortune remains unclear, he was accused of drug trafficking by the United States and many mysteries remain around him -, Bola Tinubu is an old veteran Nigerian politics.
“Through his experience as a politician and a businessman, he knows all the tricks and has long been a ‘kingmaker’ in Nigeria”, explains Enzo Fasquelle, policy officer at the independent observatory Nigeria Watch in Ifra-Nigeria. Despite this, continues the specialist, the president remains “at the head of a country with a precarious balance, both on political and economic issues, and must carry out permanent arbitrations between his obligees in the South and his opponents in the North” .
A Muslim from the southwest of the country, a historic member of the APC (Congress of Progressives) and governor of the megalopolis of Lagos between 1999 and 2007, where he was accused of systemic corruption, Bola Tinubu was elected in an election marred by fraud and denounced by the opposition. The first decisions he made when he came to power, in particular that of stopping subsidizing oil, which came into effect on May 29 at the cost of heavy inflation, also earned him many criticisms.
“Bola Tinubu has a mandate that starts at top speed,” notes Cyrielle Maingraud-Martinaud. Whether internally or externally, he seeks to make strong decisions, breaking with his predecessor Buhari, who was blamed for his inactivity. »
Described as an elderly, weak and sick man during the campaign, Nigeria’s second civilian president seems to be seeking to deploy his aura, and with it that of his country, a demographic and economic giant in search of influence in the region. He thus affirmed, at the ECOWAS summit, on July 12: “Nigeria, we are back. His position in Niger can also be explained by his past as a political opponent under the military dictatorship of the 1990s, which earned him imprisonment and exile in Benin.
“Bola Tibunu poses as a great defender of democracy, it is part of his character and his political persona, observes Vincent Hiribarren, lecturer at King’s College London. He wears, for example, a hat adorned with broken handcuffs to recall his past as a political prisoner. Presenting himself as a defender of democracy in Niger allows him to brandish something positive, after his election – like his first decisions – was disputed. But maybe he’s getting caught in his own trap? »
The possibility of a military intervention has indeed aroused opposition from civil society. The Senate voted against the intervention on Saturday, while its agreement is necessary for any deployment of troops outside the country. The elected officials of the northern territories, which share a strategic border of more than 1,500 kilometers with Niger and whose populations maintain multiple links, were particularly opposed to the intervention.
Nor is it certain that Nigeria, in the midst of a security crisis, has the means to match its ambitions. Its powerful but understaffed army is both occupied in the northwest of the country, where it has been fighting the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency for more than a decade, and in the southeast, where it has been battling separatists , and finally in the northwest and in the center, where banditry is gaining momentum.
“Insecurity is increasing and even reaching the cities, underlines Cyrielle Maingraud-Martinaud. Faced with threats of military intervention, the question of many here is: “But with what resources?”, “Is this really the priority today?” »
On the other hand, if nothing happens in Niger, continues the researcher, “Bola Tinubu will have to find a way to justify himself so as not to lose face”. “I think he’s in a tricky position. If absolutely nothing happens, after all that he and the ECOWAS leaders have agitated in terms of the risks of contagion and the legitimization of a potential military response… He is at the very beginning of his mandate, we will have to see how he manages to justify his change of position. If we brandish a threat and we are not able to implement it, while we present Nigeria as the giant of West Africa, we really have to find a good narrative. »
