"Who does not say a word consents", we often say. Even if it can be debated in some cases. Still, we cannot take refuge in silence in the face of certain situations without giving reason to this expression. For my part, there can be no procrastination or compromise in the face of the coup d'Etat in Niger and the need to restore constitutional order. Even if the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must finally reform or disappear. Africa in general and West Africa in particular has become the battleground between two visions of the world of the great powers, but above all two geopolitical visions which are strangely reminiscent of the Cold War period. And, unfortunately, whether we defend one position or another, this confrontation is only to the detriment of Africans themselves in the end. However, I will not support the “Pro-Russians”. And for good reason:
3 – France and the West have a good back
I share, moreover, the opinion of Constant Sinzogan who writes: “Soldiers who abandon their republican and priestly mission to put themselves in the butter of power and the idiot * thinks that they are settling an account with France.
What account to settle with a country that seeks to abandon the Nigerien uranium market because it negotiated it for the long term when the price of ore today is lower than in the past and Kazakhstan and its uranium are more attractive in terms of price, transport costs and quality?
What score to settle with a country whose political and economic influence is withering on its own over the years and generations?
And overall I do not understand and have never understood by what mental structure and by what intellectual architecture we come to want to get out of a supposed imperialist regimentation by democratic decline and the loss of freedoms?
The former countries of the Soviet Union and the former communist countries of the East came out of the bosom and the Russian influence by the choice of democracy and freedom, but in the former French colonies, the pretext is to come out of a supposed French regimentation through the abandonment of democratic processes and the decline of freedoms.
I don't have a canonical age, but I'm a certain age and I've never seen a coup d'etat in French-speaking Africa change anything in the daily life of the French people. Life at home has always continued its course and the price of the baguette does not take the elevator.
It is to us and to us alone that we are wronged and this wrong is not for Putin to repair for us, he is far from being a righter of wrong, he is par excellence a wrongdoer, the idiot* must understand it.
#( * idiot) here is neither an insult nor a pejorative but rather someone who marvels at a situation which moreover should worry him”.
As I have already written in one of my editorials: “You can criticize Colonialism, the West, Europe and in a vehement way without lapsing into gutter populism. Unfortunately, some African elites or some African politicians, short of arguments and in need of publicity or popularity, have this easy temptation to make amalgams and to put everything on the backs of Westerners. And above all mainly on behalf of the former colonial powers. So much so that one is entitled to wonder what their responsibilities and those of their predecessors in the misfortunes of Africa are accountable for the disastrous socio-political situation of Black Africa today. So these Africans whose only business is to continue to manipulate their national public opinion at will, sometimes with the help of powers hostile to the West, have become, as Aimé Césaire would say, and I quote Discours sur le Colonialism: "The most common curse in this matter is to be the dupe in good faith of a collective hypocrisy, skilful in posing the problems badly in order to better legitimize the odious solutions that are brought to them*1".
Yes, indeed, Africans have heaps of things to blame for all the colonial enterprises that have been carried out in Africa. It is, at the very least, indisputable. But what did the Africans themselves do before and after independence? And instead of asking the right questions, a certain intellectual and political elite is bent on repeating the same stratagem as the former Colonialists of whom Aimé Césaire tells us and which resonates in us for many years to come like a lookout.
For ulterior purposes or not, it is truly irresponsible on the part of Africans, in this case of Black Africa, to continue to gloss over Colonialism than to leave in 2022 many African rulers at the highest levels of States behave vis-à-vis their peoples who are the Ruled as Wardens of another era, and worse, slavers. The word is not very strong, and it is no exaggeration to say it.
Chasing colonizing France, or even all of the West from Africa: that is not the problem at all. This is just something very easy to do. But what would it be for then? If we except the demagoguery and the populism shown by those who condemn France and the West to scorn. Because, despite the unbalanced and sometimes execrable relationship that African countries can sometimes have with certain European countries, this continent is first geographically the immediate neighbor of Africa before being the one with the most human intermingling with African people. By the unfortunate accident of History whose injustices we still suffer and denounce, and rightly so.
I hear, here and there, the criticisms of those who say that the West has always had contempt for Black Africa. On the one hand, this is due to the falsification of the precolonial history of Black Africa as well as to the great historical and sociological lack of culture of the vast majority of Westerners on Africa. On the other hand, this is due to our African leaders who have long taken pleasure in going to the West only to lend a hand and to return to Africa to squander the astronomical loans that they will contract with Western financial institutions in the name of their peoples. Even in relationships between individuals, the one who reaches out all the time ends up being looked down upon by the one who gives all the time. The burst of pride must come from Africans who, instead of always blindly trusting all those who come from abroad, should finally understand that it is always better for wealth to be produced or transformed in Africa and for it to be Africans are the architects so that the great part remains and benefits Africa, we may have internal quarrels against each other, that foreigners whose interests will not remain in Africa derive the greatest benefit from it. Black Africa has enough examples of this kind to continue to reproduce the same patterns and the same mistakes since its countries are politically independent.
Don't get the wrong fight though. France or the West are not our enemies, far from it. Africa has no enemies in the game of International Relations and Geopolitics, rather it has disagreements however deep they may be with some of its traditional or historical partners. It is these disagreements that should be ironed out with greater firmness, sovereignty and independence. But all these principles will remain only empty words as long as the Africans themselves cannot define what they mean by them and express them clearly vis-à-vis everyone, including the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, etc.
As long as the African Union (AU) continues to behave as it did by having its Headquarters built by China, which undermined it with microphones, and that ECOWAS would consider doing the same, it's a safe bet that no partner, whether Western or not, will ever respect Africa and Africans.
Is it France and the West that have prevented the leaders of our African countries from implementing visionary agricultural policies with Technical and Vocational Schools intended to eventually replace the hoe and the daba of our peasants by the mechanized machines of modern farmers?
Is it France and the West who have prevented the leaders of our African countries from stopping training young people in fields that lead to no employment or outlet. And yet, do we continue to train young people in fields that should even be eliminated altogether from academic and university training?
It is possible to multiply examples of this kind at leisure. To show that if the countries that were formerly colonial powers have always stolen our natural resources from us or have monopolized them below the prices they really deserve on the international market, etc., they have in no way prevented us from invent our own development. This is only the fault of the laziness of the intellectual and political elites. Including military elites.
At the risk of always repeating myself, I persist and sign to say that in Black Africa itself, many African rulers at the highest levels of States behave vis-à-vis their peoples who are the Ruled as Wardens from another era, and worse, Slavers. The word is not very strong, and it is not an exaggeration to say it. The worst thing too is when the new African leaders or the new African influencers try to make the African populations - ordinary citizens of any country - believe that the new allies who are worth a thousand and one times better than these Westerners who are the cause of all the misfortunes of Black Africa would help them to establish more livable regimes – a fortiori democratic ones – which they did not see fit to establish at home. We know what Democracy means to them...
The sub-regional organization of West African countries is at a crossroads. It would be making the most serious political mistake in its entire history by giving in to various pressures, wherever they come from, and by not forcing the soldiers to return to their barracks. To her alone belongs this responsibility before History. The coup d'etat in Niger only revealed to us what we already knew as Africans of our sub-regional organizations and in particular West Africans of ECOWAS as to its inefficiency and its legendary impotence. for several decades to deal with the problems it faces in terms of Democracy and Good Governance. However, it is out of the question to now tolerate coups d'etat. It would be the end of all respect for this organization and including the African Union itself as an organization with a pan-African vocation. Because everything that happened in West Africa is also its own fault and shows how much no power respects Africa. Otherwise how can it ban, in accordance with its texts and laws, the group of mercenaries from South Africa and let the Wagner Group operate in Africa in peace?
It is far too easy to proclaim loud and clear by all means that one is against an ECOWAS military intervention in Niger. Without offering an acceptable way out other than keeping the putschists in power. And if it is necessary to intervene militarily in the face of their refusal to restore the confiscated Power, ECOWAS should assume and assume all its responsibilities. It is all too easy to question the legality of the ECOWAS military intervention as well. But how is a coup much more legal than ECOWAS?
Forming a Government with a civilian Prime Minister and appointing ministers, even all civilians, will never be enough to make a coup legal and even less to legitimize it. Let's take it for granted.
The coup d'Etat of General Abdourahamane Tchiani against the regime of President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger has put the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the edge of a precipice and dislocation. No ECOWAS state as it stands wants war. No more than people. What is being asked of the Pustchists, and it must be said clearly and firmly, is to return power to President Mohamed Bazoum, democratically elected and whose overthrow there is no justification for, except for ulterior motives.
Instead of threatening to support Niger if ECOWAS intervenes militarily to restore constitutional order, Patriotism and Pan-Africanism would have been welcomed by all Africans if President Ibrahim Traoré and President Assimi Goïta managed to convince their brother in arms to cede power. Even if it means imposing their own agenda on ECOWAS with regard to the new ECOWAS, which they are calling for and which is commonly called the “ECOWAS of the people” or the “ECOWAS of the people”. Weighing on the opportunity offered by the coup d'Etat in Niger to profoundly change the institution and the destiny of West Africa. But that is not what interests either of them: it is Power and not the deep aspirations of the peoples of West Africa. But France and the West have a good back. This is the easy solution to smoke out the African populations and build up a certain public opinion against the West. And during this time, no one will be able to claim transparency in the rendering of accounts. No one will know how many contracts are signed with Wagner and how much these signatory states spend or earn. To the lack of transparency of which Françafrique is accused, we oppose the total opacity of Russafrique. Africa is definitely not at the end of these miseries. And I'm not going to support that! It's even the least I can do.
By Marcus Boni Teiga
*This article only reflects my position as a journalist and citizen of ECOWAS and not that of the editorial staff, which is a veritable melting pot of lively and committed but always constructive exchanges and debates. Not to be confused.
*1 – Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme, Éditions PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE, Paris, 1955.
