By Shishang John
February 12, 2024
In the years leading to independence for most African states, there was the geopolitical cleavage having various countries with the radically-minded pan-Africanists dubbed the Casablanca bloc up against the conservative, pro-Western, Monrovia bloc. The 1975 formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) put paid to that gulf in the West African sub-region, when 15 countries sought to forge a common identity around questions of citizenship, Governance, regional security and integration, economic issues, the environment, natural resources, and development, as well as issues of higher education and employment.
That vision suffered its severest blow recently when on 25 January when Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced their exit from the 15-member bloc “without delay.” They described the action as their “sovereign decision.” This not-unexpected declaration by the three Sahelian nations was the denouement of diplomatic stand-offs they had been having with ECOWAS, following a series of coups in the region; in Chad, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger, since 2020.
ECOWAS responded with a slew of sanctions, particularly against Mali and Niger; and a threat of military intervention in the latter, if the overthrown President Mohammed Bazoum was not restored to power within a week. The military juntas came in with the determination to remain in power, and diplomatic efforts to get them to accept short transition programmes following which they would all return to the barracks, have all failed.
The three countries – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – terrified at the announcement by ECOWAS that it would intervene militarily in Niger, established the “Alliance of Sahelian States,” as a martial coalition to collectively defend their military regimes. The throwback to the 1955 South African anti-apartheid spirit, that an injury to one is an injury to all, at the launch of the Freedom Charter of the African National Congress (ANC), was symbolic and mnemonic. Obviously, this also echoed the mutual, self-defence obligation clause, famous as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
For the trio, ECOWAS has drifted from the spirit of Pan-Africanism that informed its formation and failed to stem the tide of insecurity in the region headlined by Jihadist Insurgency, under whose asphyxiating grip they are, alongside Nigeria. The juntas also accused ECOWAS of being under the influence of “foreign powers” (the West), while it had moved away from the “ideals of its founding fathers and Pan-Africanism,” as mentioned earlier.
Whether it was clear to them or not, the juntas, by their move, have effectively formalised a return to the political and ideological schism of the pre-independence years, with the subregion now separated into two power blocs having hostile ideologies, and allied with foreign backers on reverse sides of the geopolitical divide.
Thus, shortly after, Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine travelled to Moscow, Teheran, and Istanbul, to discuss military aid, this was followed in lock steps with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Déby’s visit to Moscow, and the dramatic arrival of 1,000 Russian troops in Bamako, as well as the arrival of the first 100 Russian troops in Ouagadougou on 25 January. Tellingly, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promptly found time in late January to also visit the US’ major Atlantic coast partners including Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. This is evidence, if one was ever needed, that the region is becoming part of a larger geopolitical muscle-flexing.
While Blinken spoke of the values of democracy, human rights and the promise of free enterprise, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke of a common bond between Niger and Iran, both suffering from the cruel sanctions of Western imperialism and the domination system.
With the cost of living crisis rippling through most of the region, and popular discontent boiling over in many of the ill-performing economies, indeed with the memories of France’s callous and continued plunder of its colonies, and the vestiges of COVID still ravaging most of the urban and rural poor, it is not surprising that the clarion call to sovereignty, pan-Africanism, and the rejection of the West, are receiving very huge adoption from broad segments of the Francophone West African population, particularly the youths. in the instance of the Burkinabe, add the charismatic figure of the well-spruced and arresting 35-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traoré, modelled on the assassinated Burkinabe revolutionary Captain Thomas Sankara!
President Bola Tinubu, the current Chairman of the regional bloc, who was elected five weeks after he assumed office on 29 May, has tried to lead the charge of returning the trio to democracy and emphasised that ECOWAS would not tolerate a contagion of military takeovers in the sub-region.
