2023-08-19 21:00:07
Nigerien demonstrators supporting the July 26 coup in Niamey on August 3. SAM MEDNICK / AP
After the coups d’etat in Mali in 2021 and then in Burkina Faso in 2022, France is again accused by Nigerien putschists of being, without explaining them precisely, at the source of all the evils affecting their country, the one of the poorest on the planet according to the annual United Nations ranking (189th out of 191 in 2021). For its part, France is struggling to defend itself when it has arguments to refute these allegations.
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Moreover, it favors the strong way to resolve the crisis through its support for a military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) when its consequences would be disastrous for Niger and the whole of the area, which makes it unlikely. In the end, its very firm positioning turns against it and plays into the hands of the soldiers who take advantage of it to engage in a showdown, ignoring the gray areas of the coup d’etat which took place on 26 July.
In the speech by Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane, read on national television the same day, the putschists justified their coup d’etat by “the continued deterioration of the security situation, poor economic and social governance”. Regarding the first point, it is very surprising that these generals, who have been at the center of all the military decisions taken in recent years, criticize President Mohamed Bazoum and France, with whom they have worked closely for several years.
Thus, General Salifou Mody, number two in the junta, declared in March, during a trip with his French counterpart, General Thierry Burkhard, in the area “of the three borders”, in front of local elected officials and the population and while he was Chief of Staff of the Nigerien Armed Forces (FAN): “VWe are the main witnesses to the calm, relative of course, but a calm that is increasingly reigning in the area. »
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In the Diffa region, which borders Lake Chad, he was pleased with the progress made in the fight against Boko Haram thanks to an operation that he had undertaken himself and which consists of recruiting young people from the communities local. As for General Mohamed Toumba, number three in the junta, he commanded the joint operation with France and knows perfectly well that, in the “three borders” area, the security situation is much better in Niger than in Mali and Burkina Faso.
As for “poor economic governance”the falsification is also evident here: the economic growth of the country had to rise to 6.9% in 2023, according to World Bank forecasts, and double in 2024 (to reach 12.5%), “if the authorities achieve their oil production targets”. The institution highlights “a 7.5% increase in the average per capita income [qui] reduced the poverty rate by 6.4 percentage points between 2021 and 2022 ».
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