Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, who himself came to power in questionable circumstances, with his questionable background, questionable identity and questionable legitimacy, has reportedly sought the permission of the Nigerian senate to send in Nigerian troops to dislodge the military regime that seized power in neighbouring Niger.
While the letter to the senate is said to be asking for permission to act as part of a regional military force to remove the junta that took over from President Mohamed Bazoum, and Tinubu has claimed that military intervention was only going to be a “last resort”, the bulk of any fighting when the shooting starts would be done by the Nigerian military.
Even thinking about foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country is fraught with difficulty and potentially illegal. For starters, the United Nations Charter, of which Nigeria is a signatory, prohibits UN member states from attacking other member states, unless authorised by the UN Security Council. Any such attack is a “war of aggression” or a “crime against peace”. Despite, seeming encouragement by countries like France for military intervention by Ecowas, the regional body, to restore Bazoum’s regime, there is no grounding for such acts in international law. It has been suggested that Tinubu is keen on following through with the threat of military intervention to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Western leaders. But such a crime of aggression leaves its instigators liable for prosecution for war crimes.
This is not the only reason why military intervention in Niger should be avoided at all costs. Winston Churchill said: “Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that any one who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
Tinubu is anything but a “statesman”, but he would do well to remember what happened when Ugandan dictator Idi Amin thought it was a good idea to send his troops across the border to Tanzania, that he perceived to be an easy target. In October 1978 Ugandan soldiers invaded Tanzania, but by June 1979, Amin had fled the country into exile, pursued by a combination of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels.
Tinubu, like Amin, is incredibly unpopular, corrupt, and his tenuous hold on power is mainly down to controlling instruments of state terror and the patronage that comes with the presidency. While he is nominally commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the loyalty of the troops under his command is in question and the military, apart from the top brass, are suffering like the rest of the country from the worsening of living conditions exacerbated by the regime with policies such as removing the “fuel subsidy”, which has given rise to the slogan “let the poor breathe”.
Military intervention in Niger, to be executed by troops whose loyalty is questionable, on the orders of a president, whom everything about him is questionable, looks like a recipe for disaster. If as reported, the Nigerien military is being supported by the Wagner Group, the paramilitary organisation said to be composed of mercenaries, a Nigerian expedition in Niger may turn out like Amin’s misadventure in Tanzania.
Tinubu also has history of fleeing like Amin when the going gets tough. He fled abroad during the End SARS riots in Lagos in October 2020 as frustrated youths vented their anger across his domain over police brutality.
When you factor in the Nigerian military’s difficulties in dealing with ragtag militias like Boko Haram in the northeast and militants in the Niger Delta, the corruption of the top brass in embezzling funds to tool up the troops, a fight of choice with Niger should not fill any thinking Nigerian with confidence. The fact that the deranged former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode said the Nigerian army will crush the military of allied regimes Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali – the military governments of the last two said any attack against Niger would be an act of war against them – “under our feet like maggots”, should be an indication that the opposite is more likely to happen.
