Published:
Table of Contents
Editorial: The July 2023 Nigerien Coup
Jibrin Ibrahim: Coup in Niger: Not Again!
Jibrin Ibrahim: Applying Pressure but Stopping the Countdown to War
Adekeye Adebajo: From Abuja to Durban: Africa’s Thirty-year quest for Reparations
Editorial
One more domino fell on July 27, 2023 - in the West African region. This was not a surprise to analysts, some of whom predicted that this would happen. President Bazoum’s aggressive pro-France stance was seen by some, including his weary soldiers, as a slap in the face, given the painful losses of their comrades in the battle front, and some questionable deals with terrorists. The rumor mill has it that the democratically elected former President of Niger had even struck a deal with his predecessor Yesufu, on his son’s succession. This current coup may not
necessarily be the last in the Sahelian region, however.
Niger is well- endowed and resource - rich with minerals such as uranium, coal, gold, iron ore, tin, phosphates, and petroleum. It is the seventh largest producer of uranium in the world. It supplies 25 percent of the European Union’s needs for its energy plants. In 2022, Niger produced 2,020 metric tons of uranium, and that amounts to about 5% of world uranium output. Colonialists and neo- colonialists like to give the impression that they are doing humanitarian favors, whilst plundering the resources of the ex-colony/ colony to the hilt. As we all know they often claim, rather triumphantly to be giving aid to “one of the world’s poorest countries” whilst blatantly cheating and undercompensating the country for its resource. For decades Niger received no more than 5% of the company’s declared profits from the uranium mines, and even when negotiated this climbed to no more than 12 %.
ECOWAS Intervention
ECOWAS is one of Africa’s regional organizations, and is comprised of fourteen countries. It has threatened to intervene militarily in Niger against the new regime of
General Abdourahmane Tchiani, if the Bazoum administration were not reinstalled.
ECOWAS should ask itself a few hard questions before leaping into the crisis, however. For example, will Bazoum still be alive during, or after the proposed intervention? Are the French and American troops, based in Niger, mere bystanders? If not, is ECOWAS prepared for a protracted war that could potentially pull in Malian, Burkinabe, Russian, North Korean, French and U.S troops? Is this another proxy war with Cold War implications? If so, is it wise to create a venue for the never-ending cold war in African terrain? What if there are opportunistic cross - regional coups, and coup making during this chaotic episode? Chad is extremely fragile. Nigeria is beset with security problems of its own. The best soldiers may be sent to the frontline, leaving the base insecure, and would the alphabet soup of terrorist groups in the region such as AQIM and ISWAP recluse themselves, or would they step up their dastardly game? Is ECOWAS prepared for cross-border irredentism, and ethnic solidarity, should the intervention be prolonged, in this nation of dominant Hausa people, and Songhai -Zarma, Tuareg, Fulani, Tubu and Arab minorities. (Bazoum is of the latter group, according to some analysts. He is also seen as Libyan in some circles.) Is this war about democracy - or is it for uranium - for the French Company ORANO, in the world’s 7th largest producer of uranium. Interestingly enough, the new regime has banned the export of uranium and gold to France.
We do hope for a peaceful resolution of the crisis and a restoration of stability in the region. No more lives should be lost in the Sahel, REGION that has witnessed the demise of countless lives in the post- Gaddafi era. Some analysts point to the influx of jihadists into the region, following NATO’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, as the start of this new troubled era of instability for the Sahel, a development that would contribute, in the long run, to anti -French hostility and the four successive coups in the region - among other factors.
Included in this issue of Africa Update, are illuminating insights by Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, Senior Fellow, Center for Democracy and Development, Abuja- first published in The Daily Trust on July 28, 2023 and August 4, 2023. The issue also highlights an illuminating discussion on reparations by Professor Adekeye Adebajo, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa. The strong anti- French sentiments in the region alluded to by Dr. Ibrahim, are not entirely due to France’s relative silence on the issue of reparations. As pointed out by the distinguished scholar, atonement for historic crimes against humanity, in the continent, by France, and other imperial powers,
would be a step forward.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Chief Editor, Africa Update
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Coup in Niger
Jibrin Ibrahim
Centre for Democracy and Development
Abuja, Nigeria
The Wednesday coup in Niger finally succeeded at midnight with soldiers announcing on national TV the dissolution of the Constitution, Parliament and Government. Sigh…. This makes it the sixth country in the West Africa region to experience a coup since August 2020. Adding Chad makes it the seventh. Early on Wednesday morning, it had been reported that President Mohammed Bazoum had been held in the presidential palace by his own presidential guard. It appeared the guard then had to negotiate with the regular army while shooting in the air to keep anti coup protesters at bay. President Bola Tinubu sent a strong message to the putschists warning them that West Africa was no longer willing to tolerate coups. He also consulted with President Patrice Talon of Benin Republic who is acting as mediator with the military. The US, France, UN, ECOWAS and African Union also condemned the coup calling for a return to status quo.
The coup might be much more about the new battle for geopolitical control of world politics than about Niger and democracy per se. The tradition of French (and Western) political control of Francophone Africa has been under bombardment in the last three years. The French army has been thrown out of Mali and Burkina Faso and have moved into Niger and of course Chad as the last stronghold of France’s neo-colonial military presence in the zone. Meanwhile, public opinion has turned very strongly against France in the Sahel. The people of Niger have been demonstrating, demanding for the expulsion of the French forces but both former President Mahamadou Issoufou and the current Bazoum have remained resolutely with France, against the trend of popular opinion. The military in Niger would be aware about the possible temporary legitimacy they could get by sending France out of Niger. In that sense, the coup was always on the cards. There is no surprise therefore to hear from the coup plotters that a plane load of French paratroopers arrived in Niamey yesterday morning in spite of the announced border closure but have been contained in the airport.
The problem with France’s ruthless neo-colonial control of its African colonies is the lack of any redeeming features. It’s a long litany of narratives about removing and often killing successive presidents who have sought to liberate their countries from the neo-colonial stranglehold and replacing them with puppets. France would not even allow their neo-colonies pretend to be independent by running their national currencies and public treasuries. Key ministries would often be run directly by French technocrats.
Then Russia came in from the cold and realized that with minimal propaganda efforts and a use of a few social media influencers, they could turn the tide of public opinion against France and dangle Wagner aa a viable mercenary force that could do exactly what a new anti-French leadership wants. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. The geo-politics of the Russia-Ukraine war and the battle between the old regressive hegemonists – the United States and its allies and the emerging hegemonists – Russia, China and their allies is being fought out in West Africa and therein lies the challenge; Africa must learn to play its own strategic game rather than play second fiddle to the game of thrones of the others.
Yesterday, a number of citizens of ECOWAS, drawn from civil society organizations, the private sector, political parties, unions, religious and lay movements, women and youth associations met in Abuja to review the overall state of affairs in the ECOWAS Region and the prospects of realization of the collective vision of democracy and integration for “an ECOWAS of peoples”. The forum noted that after the wave of democratization of the 1990s that raised a lot of hope, the West African region is undergoing democratic regression with an erosion of individual and collective freedoms in a context of growing instability in relation to recurrent socio-political crises and violent extremism. The forum called upon ECOWAS to carry out reforms, including the reform of its Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance to save the democratic gains made in the 1990s and put a stop to growing instability.
If the geopolitics of others is taking over our region, it’s partly because we have been allowing our democracy to rot from within. Indeed, in West Africa, the desire for tenure elongation is increasingly marked among incumbent presidents and democratic alternation of power is an increasingly distant prospect in many countries, thus erasing the democratic norms and standards as prescribed by the Supplementary Protocol and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
Although 80% of the peoples of the region are opposed to the confiscation of political power by third termers; in Togo the President is currently exercising his 4th term in power and preparing for a fifth term next year – 25 years in power by the end of his fifth term. In Côte d'Ivoire, 81-year-old President Alasane Ouattara is exercising his 3rd term and will achieve 15 years at the head of the state. In Guinea, it required a coup d'état to disrupt the regime of the 85-year-old Alpha Conde during his 3rd term. In Senegal, the President has just given up his third term bid after massive mobilisation against him. Let us not forget that the rigging of elections precipitated the Malian coup while third term was the reason for the coup in Guinea. When the political class debases democracy, the open doors for coup plotters.
West Africa must close its doors to the three coups – military takeover, constitutional coups for third term and electoral coup based on massive electoral fraud. The democratic culture of periodic alternation at the head of States promotes accountability and better management of public finances. In 2015 and 2022, ECOWAS had almost succeeded in the reform to make the principle of two-term limit an intangible rule of governance. Each time, the process was stopped by a few Heads of State with anti-democratic agendas - those of Togo and Gambia in 2015 and Togo, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal in 2022. As we head towards its 50th anniversary, it is time for ECOWAS to make the decision that term limits must be enshrined in golden letters in the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol and imposed on all, including gerontocrats who want to rule forever.
Applying pressure but stopping the Countdown to War
Jibo Ibrahim
At its 51st Extraordinary Summit in Abuja, ECOWAS announced a series of resolutions that would guide its action towards the restoration of constitutional order in Niger following the coup. The most spectacular was as follows:
“In the event the Authority’s demands are not met within one week, take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force; To this effect, the Chiefs of defense staff of ECOWAS are to meet immediately.”
This type of threat worked effectively in ousting President Jammeh of the Gambia in 2017 because there was unity of purpose in the entire region and the military threat against such a small country was credible. The situation in Niger and in West Africa today is significantly different after a fourth coup in the region. It is important to think carefully before taking a risky path. I am however confident that it is possible to reverse the current trend of the return of the military.
It would be recalled that on 9th July 2023, President Bola Tinubu was elected Chairman of ECOWAS. In his acceptance speech, he warned that the threat to peace in the region had reached an alarming proportion with terrorism and an emerging pattern of military takeovers that ECOWAS must take concerted action addressing with the urgency the matter demands. This decision of Nigeria to retake its leadership position in West Africa is positive. His first action point as ECOWAS Chairman was establishing the Presidential Troika + 1 (Talon - Benin, Embalo – Guinea Bissau and Bazoum - Niger + Umar Tourray, President of ECOWAS Commission to develop an immediate action plan to address terrorism and coups d’états in West Africa. The four presidents met in Abuja on 18th July and drew up plans to engage Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea on expeditious return to constitutional rule, credible and inclusive elections.
Shortly thereafter, President Bazoum himself became the next victim of a coup. President Tinubu is right to show strong leadership in this struggle against terrorism and return of the military. His actions however need to be carefully considered as the threat is against not just one but four countries – Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, who have already announced that they will fight together if Niger is attacked. Algeria has also issued a statement stating it would not allow a repeat of the dismantling of the state and subsequent chaos that was allowed to happen to Libya. Niger itself is not completely isolated as its borders with Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya and Algeria have already been reopened. The only closed borders it has today are with Nigeria and Benin.
Nigeria, on whose neck a lot of action would rely on has to consider the long history of amical and fraternal relations it has had with both the State and people of Niger. During the civil war, in spite of a lot of pressure, Niger resisted French solicitations to support Biafra. When they wanted to dam the river Niger, they accepted Nigeria’s appeal not to, so that Nigeria could fully benefit from its own hydroelectric dams on the River Niger. In compensation, we have been providing them electricity until the current sanctions’ regime went into force and the supply was stopped. What would be the implications of this measure for future bilateral relations?
The most important concern I have for the threat of war is the current geopolitical dynamics in which France and the United States are determined to keep a foothold in Niger where they have stationed their solders and have a major drone base in Agadez covering the entire region. As France has already been booted out of Burkina Faso and Mali, and their place taken over by the Russian Wagner Group, the risk of a proxy war between world powers could easily replace the ECOWAS objective of the restoration of the democratic order. Already, there are reports that the Niger putschists have gone to Mali for meetings with the Wagner Group. For Nigeria, the implications of a military confrontation could be the inflow of millions of refugees and maybe terrorists into our territory.
I believe that ECOWAS must maintain its principle of Zero Tolerance for unconstitutional change of government as enshrined in the ECOWAS and African Union Protocols and other instruments but the sanctions regime currently being implemented should be enough to force the hands of the junta. These include:
- Closure of land and air borders between ECOWAS countries and Niger;
- Institution of ECOWAS no-fly zone on all commercial flights to and from Niger;
- Suspension of all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS Member States and Niger;
- Freeze of all service transaction including utility services;
- Freeze of assets of the Republic of Niger in ECOWAS Central Banks;
- Freeze of assets of the Niger State and the State Enterprises and Parastatals in Commercial Banks;
- Suspension of Niger from all financial assistance and transactions with all financial institutions, particularly, EBID and BOAD;
- Travel ban and asset freeze for the military officials involved in the coup attempt. The same applies to their family members and the civilians who accept to participate in any institutions or government established by these military officials.
It is also important to maintain and indeed intensify the current mediation efforts. In this regard, I strongly support the dispatch of a mediation team to Niamey yesterday by the Chairman of the ECOWAS, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with a mandate to expeditiously resolve the current political impasse in the country. The delegation is headed by former Nigerian Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd). Other members are the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III and the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray. President Tinubu has also sent a separate delegation led by Ambassador Babagana Kingibe to engage with the leaders of Libya and Algeria on the Niger crisis.
Public opinion in Niger and indeed in much of the Sahel is very deeply anti-French. ECOWAS needs to be careful and ensure that the people do not see its actions as being teleguided by French and American imperialism. The ECOWAS Vision 2050 is for a West Africa of the peoples and the organization must conduct itself in a way and manner that does not alienate the said peoples.
Jibrin Ibrahim, Daily Trust, 28 July 2023; Daily Trust, 4th August 2023.
From Abuja to Durban: Africa’s Thirty-year quest for Reparations*
Adekeye Adebajo
April 29, 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the Abuja Proclamation agreed during the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in Abuja in April 1993. The meeting was organized by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) under its Nigerian chair.
The proclamation noted that “the damage sustained by the African peoples is not a ‘thing of the past’ but is painfully manifest in the damaged lives of contemporary Africans from Harlem to Harare, in the damaged economies of the black world from Guinea to Guyana, from Somalia to Surinam.”
It argued the case of African reparations by observing that other groups like Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust and Japanese-American victims of American internment during the Second World War had received monetary compensation ($60 billion; and $1.2 million respectively).
The document stressed that Western countries that had benefitted from four centuries of free slave labour and a century of colonial exploitation must repair this damage. It advocated cash transfers and debt annulment for African countries and diaspora states and communities across the Caribbean and the Americas.
Abuja further called for greater African representation in institutions of global governance like the World Bank and IMF, and a permanent seat for Africa on the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
Prophets of Abuja: Ali Mazrui, Ade Ajayi, and Moshood Abiola
Many of these were ideas that Kenyan intellectual, Ali Mazrui – one of five African prophets of reparations – had consistently championed.
He had also proposed four concrete acts of restitution: first, Western material and moral support to democracy in Africa and reduction of support to tyrants; second, Western reduction or elimination of economic impediments to Africa’s development by, for example, annulling Africa’s external debt (which stood at $644 billion in 2021); third, assisting Africa to overcome socio-cultural obstacles to democratization through such actions as backing women empowerment programmes; fourth, capital transfers from the West to Africa – “the Middle Passage Plan” – similar to the $12 billion Marshall Plan through which the US had enabled European reconstruction between 1948 and 1952.
Mazrui was part of the OAU Eminent Persons Group established in Dakar in June 1992, along with Nigerian historian, Jacob Ade Ajayi, and Jamaican scholar-diplomat, Dudley Thompson. The group pushed for reparations for the damage done to Africa and its diaspora for slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism.
It was co-chaired by Nigerian multi-millionaire philanthropist, Moshood Abiola, who had sponsored the First Reparations Conference in Lagos in December 1990. The group met again in Abuja in September 1992 and April 1993, but was sadly discontinued after Nigeria ended its chairing of the OAU in 1993, and the movement’s main financier, Moshood Abiola – presumed winner of the June 1993 presidential elections in Nigeria – was jailed by military autocrat, General Sani Abacha, in June 1994 while trying to claim his mandate, and died four years later. Two more low-key Reparations conferences were held in Benin and Missouri in 1999.
Ade Ajayi argued for a central focus on the Transatlantic slave trade due to its links with colonialism and neo-colonialism. He regretted that discussions about the contributions of the slave trade to the West’s industrialisation have been neglected, and criticised the indifferent attitude of many African scholars to this issue.
He observed that a major motive of European colonial rule was to keep African labour in a cheap state akin to slavery, using methods perfected during two centuries of Caribbean colonialism. Ajayi further explained that about one million Africans had died defending their European colonial masters during two World Wars.
He thus advocated four key measures to achieve reparations: domestic education and mobilisation of African societies; documentation and research (through national documentation centre) on the costs of slavery and colonialism; arguing a cogent case for African reparations; and making detailed calculations of the costs of reparations, before placing the issue on the agenda of the United Nations.
The 1993 Abuja proclamation was visionary in calling for the return of looted African artifacts to their rightful owners, which French, German, and British governments have recently started to do. Clearly influenced by Ajayi, the document called on African governments to establish national committees to study the damage of slavery and colonialism, while promoting dissemination and education.
The proclamation further called on the OAU to grant observer status to diaspora groups working on restitution. Abuja, finally, requested African states to accede to the “right of return” of all diaspora citizens wanting to resettle in their ancestral homelands.
Prophet of Accra: Wole Soyinka
The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission held in Accra in August 1999, made similar demands as Abuja, and was attended by civil society representatives of 15 African and Caribbean states, as well as diaspora delegates from the United States and Britain.
It called specifically for compensation of $777 trillion as reparations from the West for slavery and colonialism, and for African traditional leaders to make land available for diaspora returnees.
Though not a delegate in Accra, Nigerian Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka’s book, The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness, appeared in the same year as the conference, and tackled similar issues. Soyinka stressed the importance of truth in rebuilding nations, and noted that truth commissions in Africa are similar to the reparations movement in demanding restitution to exorcise the past in order to achieve cathartic healing.
He argued that the crimes of the post-colonial African elite against African populations have echoes of colonial crimes, and that such human rights violations weaken the OAU’s crusade for reparations for Western slavery and colonialism. Citing the case of post-apartheid South Africa and jihadist Sudan, Soyinka noted that contemporary crimes demand more urgent reparations, as the victims and perpetrators are still alive.
He further insisted that the looted wealth of African autocrats like Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and Nigeria’s Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, must be returned to the continent as a form of “internal moral cleansing” in order to strengthen the African case for global reparations.
Like Ade Ajayi, Soyinka argued that the slave trade dislocated much of Africa’s organic economic systems, resulting in many of the continent’s contemporary economic challenges. Similar to Ali Mazrui, the Nobel laureate called for the annulment of Africa’s debt in exchange for the continent annulling Europe’s historical injustices on the continent.
Prophet of Durban: Thabo Mbeki
The UN World Conference against Racism took place in South Africa’s port city of Durban in August/September 2001. The summit was hosted by then president, Thabo Mbeki, the apostle of Africa’s Renaissance. More than any other contemporary African leader, Mbeki had a deep engagement with the black world.
As a young student, he had imbibed the activism of Martin Luther King Jr., the scholarship of Frantz Fanon, and the poetry of Langston Hughes. As president, he preached black solidarity from Atlanta, to Bahia, to Havana, to Haiti. Like Mazrui, Mbeki, as president, consistently urged the reform of institutions of global governance such as the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO in order to give Africa greater voice in them.
An important achievement of Durban was to declare slavery to be a crime against humanity. The Transatlantic slave trade was termed an “appalling tragedy” of “abhorrent barbarism” that “should always have been” a crime against humanity. Durban also argued that colonialism had resulted in racism and suffering that has endured into the contemporary age.
The declaration pushed for the inclusion of the history and contributions of Africans in educational curricula, as well as fully integrating into public services, and increasing social services to, “communities of primarily African descent” in countries like the US and Brazil. While Durban did not change the world, it helped lay the foundation for contemporary Black Lives Matter-led racial struggles which culminated in global anti-racism protests in 2020.
Whither Africa’s Struggle for Reparations?
In concluding this journey that has stretched from Abuja to Durban, it is important to pose the question: How can European nations who enslaved and colonised African people for nearly five centuries repair this pernicious damage that has left Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas with the triple burdens of a lack of development and crippling debt; diseases; and deadly conflicts? As has often been noted, the movement to abolish slavery took generations to succeed, and so also will the contemporary movement for restitution for slavery and colonialism.
The African Union must, however, help to drive this issue, as the OAU energetically did under Nigerian leadership three decades ago.One of the most important recent developments is the agreement by the German government, in May 2021, to pay Є1.1 billion in compensation, over 30 years, for the genocide in its then colony of Southwest Africa (Namibia) between 1904 and 1908.
In December 2022, the Netherlands government apologised for Dutch slavery globally, and established a €200 million fund to raise consciousness and address the lingering impacts of slavery. Will the more egregious abusers of France, Britain, Belgium, and Portugal follow suit, and start to atone for their historical crimes against humanity?
*First published in Nigeria’s Guardian, April 27, 2023.