On July 26, the news broke that a group of mutinous soldiers attached to Niger’s Presidential Guard had surrounded the presidential palace and detained President Mohamed Bazoum. Following reports of a factional split and wrangling for control within the army amid the apparent coup attempt, a Nigerien military spokesperson announced later that day that Bazoum had been removed from power and the country’s constitution suspended. A junta calling itself the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland and headed by Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, the commander of the Presidential Guard, announced it had replaced the civilian government. Tchiani subsequently declared himself the new head of state in a televised address two days later.
Bazoum has so far refused to resign, and it’s still possible—though increasingly unlikely—that the coup will be reversed. If it is not, it will mark the fifth successful coup in the West African country since it gained independence from France in 1960 and the sixth military takeover in the region in three years. It occurred against the backdrop of a worsening security landscape in the broader Sahel and at an inflection point in the regional security frameworks created to resolve the decade-long instability. The coup immediately drew widespread international condemnation, including from Niger’s closest international partners like France and the United States, as well as from the United Nations.
The African Union joined the chorus, while leaders from the Economic Community of West African States also condemned Bazoum’s detention and called for his release and reinstatement. In a communique released after an emergency meeting held Sunday in Abuja at the behest of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, West African leaders announced the imposition of severe economic sanctions on Niger, including the closure of land and air borders and the freezing of commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS countries and Niger. Crucially, ECOWAS leaders floated the possibility of military force as a last resort to restore constitutional order in Niger in the event Bazoum is not restored to power within a week.
The West African bloc’s reaction to yet another unconstitutional change of government by the armed forces of one of its member states was particularly forceful compared to its response to previous coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso. But it is now causing tension among the bloc’s members as well as with the juntas ruling Mali and Burkina Faso. Both have come out against the sanctions imposed on Niger by West African leaders and have warned that they would regard any eventual ECOWAS military intervention as “tantamount to a declaration of war” against their countries as well, raising the risk of a regional conflict that could only further disrupt security and stability in West Africa.
The coup in Niamey caught much of the outside world by surprise, given Niger’s image as a relatively stable outlier in a region beset by frequent upheaval. Bazoum assumed office in April 2021, inheriting the reins from his predecessor, former President Mahamadou Issoufou, in the first transfer of power between elected Nigerien civilian leaders since independence. The successful completion of that democratic transition won Issoufou widespread praise internationally, and he was awarded the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership for overseeing the historic handover.
If foreign observers were stunned by Bazoum’s toppling, it did not come as a shock to many Nigeriens, and not solely because of their country’s history of military coups.
The transition was portrayed as a passing of the baton as well as a transfer of power, given that Bazoum had served in several high-profile positions in Issoufou’s administration and won the presidential election as the candidate of the ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism. He pledged as a candidate to improve security, tackle graft and consolidate the social development gains made by Issoufou.
Upon taking office, Bazoum shored up Niger’s security partnerships with France and the U.S., frequently arguing that his country needed the support of the international community to tackle the myriad challenges it faced. Amid a worsening of relations since 2020 between Niger’s neighbors and France—the former colonial power in much of the Sahel region—Bazoum swiftly moved to position Niamey as the West’s security partner of choice in the region. Following the expulsion of French and European troops from Mali and Burkina Faso last year, it became commonplace to see Niger described in international commentary and analysis as a “linchpin” and “key partner” of the West’s security footprint in the Sahel.
Unlike previous coups in Niger, which typically occurred against the backdrop of political crises, this one did not appear to be triggered by any single event indicating impasse or gridlock. As a result, many foreign observers—particularly Western governments and commentators—found the takeover dumbfounding, especially given Bazoum’s stated commitment to pursuing the kind of robust counterterrorism strategy and “good governance” measures they have long advocated for. He also demonstrated a willingness to engage in intercommunal dialogue and negotiation with Islamist extremist and armed groups, notwithstanding the considerable opposition that approach drew within and outside Niger.
Many Western commentators pointed to some findings showing a decline in violent attacks in Niger—in comparison to neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso—as proof that Niamey’s security partnerships with European and U.S. forces were effective. In the past year, Bazoum hosted a flurry of high-profile guests, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, all of whom sang his praises and pledged to sustain support for his administration. Many outside observers therefore found it hard to make sense of the fact that a seemingly well-regarded civilian leader who was believed to enjoy popular legitimacy was overthrown by the armed forces.
Almost immediately, many analysts began to speculate about a range of possible causes and motivations, running the gamut from unsubstantiated claims about Russian involvement and local opposition to the presence of European troops on Nigerien soil to a breakdown in relations between Bazoum and Tchiani. This speculation was perhaps predictable, given the paucity of international coverage of Niger. But if foreign observers were stunned by Bazoum’s toppling, it did not come as a shock to many Nigeriens, and not solely because of their country’s history of military coups.
To begin with, tensions between Bazoum and the army’s top brass and senior Defense Ministry officials, many of whom were appointed by Issoufou, as well as between Bazoum and Issoufou, who has remained influential in Niamey, were well-known to Nigeriens. As I noted in a WPR briefing last year, Bazoum’s anti-corruption drive and move to consolidate his grip on power after a failed coup attempt days before he was sworn in antagonized senior military leaders and drew the ire of some civil society groups for their perceived heavy-handedness. Perhaps out of a desire to take on the big challenges he promised, Bazoum centralized decision-making in his office and, more broadly, did little to discourage the concentration of political power in the Nigerien presidency.
A veteran politician whose tenure as interior minister under Issoufou from 2016 to 2021 was characterized by widespread impunity for Nigerien security forces, Bazoum was also ushered into power by a controversial election in which a popular opposition candidate was barred from running and that featured allegations of electoral malpractice. The protests that followed were marred by at least two deaths, many more injuries, mass arrests and widespread destruction of property. Bazoum’s approval of the redeployment of French and European troops to Niger after they were ordered to leave Mali drew opposition among sections of civil society and the public, and his administration’s harsh crackdowns on public protests against the rising cost of living and the security partnership with France likely did little to assuage their concerns.
Even the claims of an improved security landscape in Niger are open to debate, with a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies—which is affiliated with the U.S. Defense Department—finding that Niger saw a 43 percent increase in violent events in the past year. But beyond the vagaries of statistical analysis, many Nigeriens do not believe that their lives have necessarily become safer and more prosperous, and seemingly favorable comparisons with the recent past or their neighbors are no consolation.
Niger remains one of the world’s most impoverished nations and is also one of its youngest, with a median age of 15. Distrust of public institutions and the political class is common among citizens, even as many express a nominal preference for democratic rule. Insecurity, the effects of the climate crisis and displacement caused by the deadly violence continue to make living conditions unbearable for millions of Nigeriens. Many, if not most, of these challenges are rooted in structural conditions beyond Niger’s control, but Bazoum signed up for the job pledging to take on those difficult tasks.
The events of the past week have been commonly referred to by many commentators as, among other things, a “setback” for or “blow” to democracy in Niger. This is a reductive conclusion, however, as it is based on a familiar conflation of the form of democratic governance in African states with its substance. Security, economic progress and social development are necessary to sustain public support for any system of government, including democracy. It is difficult to gauge the true extent of Bazoum’s popularity—to say nothing of support for and opposition to the coup—and the dynamics surrounding his presidency do not necessarily explain why he was overthrown. But coups do not happen in a vacuum and cannot be removed from the interplay of institutional context, social conditions and structural elements.
It is true that Tchiani and his loyalists have cynically exploited bleak conditions in Niger to justify his illegal power grab. But as I’ve argued on many occasions, the inability of the “good governance” toolkit to produce material improvements in the lives of Africans is undermining civilian leaders’ claims to popular legitimacy, while causing many to look toward other actors—opportunistic as some might be—pledging to chart a different course. And while street protests do not always represent the sum total of public opinion, the lack of a popular uprising against Bazoum’s ouster could be interpreted as the lack of widespread support for a leader who excelled at telling Western interlocutors what they wanted to hear but did not do enough to ingratiate himself to the public from which he drew his legitimacy.
There is no clear pathway out of the current crisis for Niger. Western partners have suspended the provision of aid to Niamey; the U.S. has stopped short of joining them, limiting its response for now to suspending its security cooperation. A range of regional actors are involved in diplomatic engagement with the Nigerien junta, including Gen. Mahamat Deby, the head of Chad’s transitional government who assumed power in an unconstitutional takeover of his own following the death in 2021 of his father, Idriss Deby.
A military intervention in Niger is unlikely to yield solutions to its problems and could exacerbate them.
But speculation is increasingly turning toward what an ECOWAS military intervention could look like. France and the U.S. have obliquely given what amounts to their diplomatic blessing to a forceful reaction. But a regional intervention might be no less plagued by a lack of popular support, in a region where ECOWAS already suffers from major credibility deficits.
As noted, Mali and Burkina Faso have already warned against an ECOWAS intervention in Niger. Many in Niger and elsewhere in the wider region will likely regard such an operation as little more than a fig leaf for U.S. and French meddling in Niger, at a time when both powers are making strategic adjustments to their overseas security footprints that they say will feature more local and regional leadership. An ECOWAS military mission will almost certainly be led by Nigeria, the region’s hegemon and Niger’s neighbor to the south. But there are major doubts about the capability and readiness of Nigeria’s armed forces, which are already beleaguered by the 14-year fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East and escalating security crises across the rest of the country. Given the already dire security outlook in Nigeria and West Africa more broadly, an ECOWAS military intervention could worsen regional instability by distracting attention from the challenge posed by Islamist extremists and other security threats.
As in the case of coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, ECOWAS and its international partners appear to have few cards to play against a military junta that is quickly trying to rally popular support for its cause. A military intervention in Niger is unlikely to yield solutions to its problems and could exacerbate them. It could also potentially result in a quagmire, at a time when Niger’s West African neighbors will not be able to count on the sustained support of Paris and Washington.
It is useful that Tinubu is playing a proactive diplomatic role in response to a coup on Nigeria’s doorstep, and other regional capitals are certainly breathing a sigh of relief to see Abuja—where ECOWAS is headquartered—reembrace its historical role as the bloc’s agenda-setter. Whether that will be enough to “restore constitutional order” in Niger, to say nothing of doing so as quickly as Tinubu and other West African leaders have demanded, is another question. But they have few other options but to try.
Perhaps the only certainty is that, as always, the brunt of the impact of the coup and its aftermath will be borne by the people who can least afford to see their living conditions worsen, in Niger and the region more broadly.
Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé is an editor, analyst and consultant who writes about African politics, security and foreign relations, with a focus on West Africa. He was formerly an associate editor at WPR.