Burkina Faso Junta Foils Alleged Coup Attempt

The military junta in Burkina Faso has announced that it had successfully thwarted what they describe as a coup attempt. The junta did not provide specific details regarding the incident. In a statement, they stated that “a verified coup attempt was prevented on September 26, 2023, thanks to Burkina Faso’s intelligence and security services. Currently, several officers and individuals believed to be involved in this destabilization attempt have been apprehended, while others are actively being pursued.” The junta further asserted that the alleged perpetrators had sinister intentions of attacking the nation’s republican institutions and plunging the country into chaos. It’s important to note that Captain Ibrahim Traore, the leader of the junta, seized power on September 30, 2022, marking Burkina Faso’s second coup in eight months. Both coups were driven, in part, by discontent with the government’s inability to counter a persistent jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015. Following rumours of a coup on social media, thousands of people took to the streets of the capital city, Ouagadougou, late on Tuesday, responding to a call from Traore’s supporters to “defend” him. The military government has expressed its commitment to shedding light on the plot and has expressed regret that officers, sworn to protect their homeland, were involved in an endeavour that aimed to obstruct the Burkinabe people’s pursuit of sovereignty and freedom from terrorist threats. Earlier this month, the country’s military prosecutor disclosed the arrest and charging of three soldiers who were accused of plotting against the ruling junta. These individuals were allegedly scouting locations used by key junta figures, including Traore, with the goal of destabilizing the transitional government. Burkina Faso has been grappling with a persistent jihadist insurgency, resulting in over 17,000 casualties among civilians and troops, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Additionally, more than two million people have been displaced, making it one of Africa’s most severe internal displacement crises. The country has experienced political instability with coups in January and August 2022, toppling elected leaders and leading to interim military rule. Despite government claims of territorial gains, jihadist attacks persist.

Military Action Against Niger: Int’l Group drags Tinubu to ECOWAS Court

An International Civil Group, Egalitarian Mission for Africa (EMA)  has dragged President Bola Tínubu of Nigeria before the Economic Community of West African (ECOWAS) Court of Justice, invoking the Protocols of the Court to stop the planned military action against the Republic of Niger over coup plot. The group, in the suit instituted on its behalf by a Nigerian lawyer, Dr Oluwakayode Ajulo, OON, is praying the Regional Court to invoke relevant ECOWAS treaties and international laws to stop the military invasion of Niger Republic being spearhead by the Nigerian Government. The grouse of the Civil Group, among others, is that the planned military action or invasion will run foul of the obligations in the ECOWAS treaties and therefore amounting to illegality. The suit marked ECW/CCJ/APP/3/23 emphasized categorically that ECOWAS treaties prohibit aggression among member States. Apart from the Egalitarian Mission for Africa (EMA), other plaintiffs in the matter are a former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of the Internal Affairs (NIIA), Professor Bola Akinterinwa and a Nigerian Northern Region lawyer, Hamza Nuhu Dantani. Defendants are ECOWAS, Authority of Heads of State & Government of ECOWAS, President of ECOWAS Mission,  Federal Republic of Nigeria and Republic of Niger. A military group led by General Abdourhamane Tchiani had on July 26 toppled the civilian and democratic government of President Mohammed Bazoun who has since been clamped into unlawful military detention. Although the three plaintiffs in the regional suit described the coup detat as most unfortunate, they however warned that Nigeria should not travel the dangerous road of military hostilities that may further escalate the crisis in the Niger Republic. According to them, over 300,000 refugees, mainly Nigeria citizens, have already fled the Niger Republic adding that military action against Niger Republic would lead to breach of fundermrntal rights to life, right to dignity of human persons and liberty to life. The plaintiffs therefore prayed the ECOWAS Court of Justice for a restraining order against any form of military action in Niger Republic that may undermine the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Niger Republic. Besides the Court action, the plaintiffs’ Counsel, Dr Ajulo wrote a strongly worded letter to President Tinubu, notifying him of pendency of the suit and invoking the Protocol of the ECOWAS Court on the need to respect and obey the rule of law as well as to refrain from doing that will militate against the subject matter. The letter is entitled “Notification of Pendency of case before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice ; Call For Strict Adherence To The Protocol of the Honourable Court of the ECOWAS Commumity Court of Justice’.  It read in part “We are Counsel to the Plaintiffs/Applicants in the above case before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice and it is on their firm and unequivocal instructions that we write. Sequel to the Resolution and several sanctions imposed by the ECOWAS in the aftermath of the unfortunate and unconstitutional takeover of the democratically elected Government of the Republic of Niger, we have lodged a Case before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in an application for reliefs as the proposed military intervention in the Republic of Niger would be tantamount to aggression between ECOWAS Member States. ” The intervention will specifically violate Articles 1, 5, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22 & 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; Articles 1 (2), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 & 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Articles 1, 3, 22, 23 (3), 25 (1) & 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948; Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 of the Declaration on the Right to Development 1986; Articles 6, 15, 31, 63 & 64 of the Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States; Article 10 of the Supplementary Protocol (A/SP.1/01/05) amending the Protocol (A/P.I/7/91) relating to the Community Court of Justice and Articles 10 (c), 22, 26, 27, 28, 56 of the ECOWAS Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peace– Keeping and Security 1999. “The Case, an official copy of which has been duly served on your Excellency through the ECOWAS Secretariat, 101, Yakubu Gowon Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja, has invoked the jurisdiction of the International Court to consider conventions, treaties, Protocols and regulations to which your Excellency and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are signatories and which override the resolutions, sanctions, domestic law and practices and which the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has been called upon to declare illegal. Another copy of the Case is attached for your informed action. “We wish to further draw your attention to Article 22(2) of the Protocol on the Community Court of Justice which mandates that “When a dispute is brought before the Court, Member states or institutions of the Community shall refrain from any action likely to aggravate or militate against its settlement” “In the Case before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Authority of Heads of State and Government (of which your Excellency is the Chairman), President, ECOWAS Commission, The Federal Republic of Nigeria (of which your Excellency is the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces) have been sued as sovereign legal representatives of respective institutions including the Republic of Niger. “It is your Excellency’s sacred duty as the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS and the President and Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces of Federal Republic of Nigeria under your hand to bring the institution of the Case before ECOWAS Community Court of Justice to the attention of the other Defendants and to insist, particularly in your Excellences’ subsequent meetings, that the Defendants refrain from taking any action in respect of the subject matter pending the determination of the case, in view of your Excellency and Nigeria’s protocol obligation under the Article above quoted. “Your Excellency, it is our firm

Niger Crisis: Guarding our minds against information warfare and perception manipulation

When we see a sleekly produced video with subliminal political overtone like the “Yoruba” woman on a viral video showing President Tinubu sleeping in the background, making an emotional plea about the plight of Yorubas in Niger, please keep your wits about you and be vigilant and know that you are being subjected to perception manipulation by AI and deep fake. The woman who claims she is more Nigerien than a Nigerian and that she is a foreigner in Nigeria should be told to stay her butt in her native country Niger, and let the president who Nigerians have elected to take the hard decisions on our behalf to do his job. History and the electorate will hold him accountable for the outcome of his decisions. That is why he has been hired, to take all the information in his possession and the experts serving on his national security council into account, to make the hard choice. He has the intelligence report most of us do not have access to. Yes, we can exercise our civic responsibility to let him know where we stand, but international crisis management is not conducted by taking polls but by data. Don’t let us be manipulated by crass emotionalism and social media hyperventilating when it comes to the ongoing Niger crisis. We must remember that complex international issues such as a military junta in Niger, and a clientele state run by Putin’s Wagner mercenaries, with which we have no real geographical nor cultural border, represents a present, imminent and existential danger to our country. None of us is getting the security and intelligence report that is on the desk of the president in Aso Rock, so we are not in the position to know the dynamic at play in the Niger crisis. Yes, Mr. Tinubu as the president of Nigeria and the Chairman of ECOWAS is the face of the Niger crisis, but we must remember this is a crisis of dire international and geopolitical implications and there are many actors involved, including the ECOWAS, the African Union, the UN, the Western powers and of course Russia. So the notion that piling pressure on President Tinubu like many are erroneously assuming, will cause him to deviate from what intelligence report is guiding him to do, shows naïveté about the complicated dynamics of international crisis management like the contagion of military coups that is spreading and rampaging the Sahel region, and that is inching towards our homeland. They are not issues that can be resolved by the maddening appeal to emotionalism on Nigerian social media. No one wants war. However, sleeping with one’s two eyes closed when you have a raging lion at one’s doorstep is neither a smart thing to do. The Nigerian social media and especially WhatsApp, is consumed by fear mongering about impending war and dooms day prediction about how the ragtag Niger military will make a mince meat of the Nigerian military. That is nothing but an empty posturing and fear-mongering. We must realise that behind the scenes, frenetic diplomatic, economic, and political pressures are now being applied to the juntas to make them see reason. Russian propagandists have seized on this crisis to portray the Nigerien coup plotters as anti-imperialists who are seeking to liberate Niger and the entire African continent from under the yoke of France imperialism, neo-colonialism, economic servitude and exploitation. What a pile of hogwash. Would a true anti-imperial regime go to bow before and kiss Putin’s ass like the young lad leader from Burkina Faso did, when like a school boy before his dad condescendingly gave his rousing support for the Ukraine war and then begged the Russian leader, that he is willing to open Burkina Faso economy to the Russian with no strings attached? He then made the ridiculous request to Putin to come and build a nuclear plant in impoverished Burkina Faso. We all could see the flag of Russia flying all over Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Are those the kind of actions that a Thomas Sankara whose image all the three military leaders are invoking would take? On the contrary, by their naive posturing, it can be said that they are frankly desecrating the values that their fabled hero stood for. If anything, they are merely selling to us their selfish lust for power as the long awaited African revolution to free the continent from servitude to France and other Western powers. Record has it that the coup leader in Niger, General Tchiani has been a member of the Nigerien political class that has enjoyed the spoils of power and that have been serving the imperialists’ interest of their France overlords for decades as the head the presidential guards. He, in fact, crushed another coup against President Bazoum just days to his inauguration in 2021. Reports have it that the reason he struck with a coup was because he was about to be booted out of his position of power and influence. All of a sudden, he is now the liberator and Thomas Sankara of Africa. What a desecration of that sacred name and of the legacy of Shankara, one of the greatest leaders to walk the surface of Africa. We must remember that we are fighting on social media against information, disinformation, and propaganda warfare, and against a force that is a thousand times smarter, more nimble, and more adaptable than us. Artificial intelligence and deep fake. AI can gobble through trillion bytes or data and use it to manipulate our thought process and perception. That is what is happening with the Niger coup with the massive amount of auditory and visual information manipulation and disinformation that is coming at us like the great flood of Noah. We must guard our brains and minds against this powerful enemy that is seeking to mess with our minds and perception of reality like the woman in the sleekly produced video whose intent is to tug at our heart strings. Don’t let us

Top US diplomat meets leaders of Niger military junta

A Senior U.S. diplomat Victoria Nuland has met with senior leaders of the military junta in Niger, the U.S. State Department has said. Nuland, the acting deputy secretary of state, travelled to Niamey to meet with the armed forces’ new chief of staff, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, and three other members of the military junta. She expressed Washington’s “grave concern regarding developments in Niger and our resolute commitment to supporting democracy and constitutional order,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. During the meeting Nuland outlined what was at stake if Niger did not “respect its own constitutional order,” Miller said. “This includes the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and security support for the people of Niger,” she highlighted. She described the more-than-two-hour conversation as “extremely frank and at times quite difficult” in a call with reporters. Nuland’s request to meet with ousted and detained President Mohamed Bazoum was denied, she said. “The United States continues to call for the immediate release of President Mohamed Bazoum, his family, and all those detained as part of the extra-constitutional attempt to seize power,” Miller said. Nuland was also not able to see new self-declared ruler Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani. Bazoum was ousted in a military coup on July 26. Tchiani, the commander of Niger’s presidential guard, then claimed power as the country’s new ruler. He and his group of officers suspended the constitution and dissolved all constitutional institutions.