ECOWAS and military intervention in Niger: Will the complex mission succeed?

The leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to use force against the military junta in Niger to restore democracy in the country.

During a meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Thursday, August 10, the ECOWAS defense ministers discussed the possibility of military intervention in Niger following the coup that overthrew elected President Mohamed Bazoum, in the event that diplomatic efforts to return him to power fail.

ECOWAS, which includes 15 countries, threatened to use force if the coup leaders did not return Bazoum to power by next Sunday.

Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, said that defense leaders in West African countries have drawn up a plan for a possible military intervention in Niger to counter the coup, and that the plan includes how and when to deploy forces.

Musah added that the group would not disclose to the coup plotters when and where the strike would take place, adding that the decision would be taken by heads of state.

ECOWAS faces the problem of containing the democratic decline in West Africa following a series of coups in the region. The group pledged not to tolerate any new coup after the military coups in three member states of the group (Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea) during the past two years.

This is not the first threat launched by ECOWAS, as it issued previous threats and implemented them. In 2017, it sent troops to the Gambia when the country's president at the time, Yahya Jammeh, refused to step down after losing elections.

Seven thousand members of the Senegalese-led ECOWAS gathered on the Gambian border, and Jammeh agreed to leave the country and live in exile in Equatorial Guinea.

About 2,500 soldiers from Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Togo and Nigeria are still participating in peacekeeping operations in the Gambia.

ECOWAS also has a military force stationed in Guinea-Bissau, as it redeployed about 600 soldiers from Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana in the wake of a coup attempt in the country in February 2022.

ECOWAS also established a peacekeeping force to restore elected rule in Liberia and Sierra Leone, while it deployed troops to Ivory Coast in 2003.

Complex scene in Niger

Any military intervention by ECOWAS in Niger would be different from the military operation led by ECOWAS in the Gambia, because the latter is the smallest non-island country in Africa and does not have a strong army, while Niger is a large country located in the heart of the Sahel region, and its army has combat experience and received training from the US Army, which deploys 1,100 soldiers in Niger, in addition to about 1,500 French soldiers stationed there.

In addition to the complexities of the scene, Mali and Burkina Faso declared in a joint statement that any military intervention against the coup leaders in Niger would be considered a declaration of war against them.

Geographical obstacles

For her part, Nourhan Sharara, a researcher of African affairs, said there are geographical obstacles facing ECOWAS, which may be the primary reason to back down from a military attack.

In a special statement to the Reference, she confirmed that Niger’s neighboring countries know that the military solution will not have good consequences and will lead to crises that the region cannot bear, where the implementation of any military intervention in Niger by ECOWAS or others will be met by a counterattack from Mali and Burkina Faso, according to their joint statement, while the head of the Russian Wagner Group announced his group’s readiness to provide military support to the Nigerien forces at any time, making the task difficult for ECOWAS and portending a third world war. She added that the internal conflicts being witness in Nigeria, with most of its militants from the Hausa tribes that constitute the majority of the population, makes it difficult or even impossible for ECOWAS to use Nigeria to threaten Niger militarily, and the authorities in Nigeria have already rejected the ECOWAS request to deploy troops to Niger.

Sharara added that Russia is crowding out the West and France in its presence in Africa amid great African acceptance of bilateral relations between West Africa and the Russian bear, which creates fears of Russian aid if war breaks out in the west of the continent.