The West’s preoccupation with the wars in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean and with United States and Chinese politics means that Africa has once again vanished from newspaper headlines. Yet it is now a continent in transition—a major transition—as the last vestiges of colonial structures are being reconsidered.
West Africa, home to many recent coups and destabilizing jihadist movements, is at the center of changes that seem to be leading the continent’s future.
Regional organizations are finding it difficult to survive. For example, did Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s “course correction” at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Summit on Feb. 24 save the regional body from destruction?
Or did the process render ECOWAS less meaningful? And is it symptomatic of an Africa-wide trend to abandon democracy and the influence of the international community?
It all centered around whether the regional bodies were to move forward as guardians of democracy or trade.
Mr. Tinubu’s “course correction” was clearly an immediate victory for some of the four West African “coup states,” the leaders of which were rewarded for remaining firm in their convictions to stay on their courses and not reversing their takeovers of civilian governments. This reinforced the trend toward transforming African views of Western-style democracy; that dream may have passed.
And the ECOWAS summit was also, in some new respects, a defeat for Western influence in Africa.
Mr. Tinubu, speaking at the Extraordinary Summit of ECOWAS in Abuja, Nigeria, said that ECOWAS sanctions should be reversed against the four members who endured recent coups. But this benevolent statement occurred only after the four threatened resignation from ECOWAS. Indeed, some of the ECOWAS sanctions were lifted immediately against Mali and Guinea (Burkina Faso was not mentioned).
Omar Touray, president of the ECOWAS Commission (the executive leading the functions of ECOWAS), said that while the political and targeted sanctions on Niger (one of the four) remained, the regional bloc had lifted some financial and economic sanctions on Guinea and Mali. Mr. Touray said that the decision was based on humanitarian considerations and was made more relevant because of the month of Lent and the approaching Ramadan period. It was assumed that the sanctions against Niger and Burkina Faso would also gradually be overcome.
Four ECOWAS member states—Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali—stated their intention to resign from the body because of sanctions against them for military coups d’etat that had deposed civilian governments. ECOWAS’s chairman, Mr. Tinubu, had, less than a year earlier, even indicated that the regional body would use collective military force to reverse the coup of July 26, 2023, in Niger, subsequently discovering the physical difficulty of such an action.
The threat of military intervention was an overreach for ECOWAS, whose leaders had felt they were following a line supported by the African Union (AU) and the Western powers.
However, the four “coup states” were not ECOWAS’s only problem. The de facto coup in Sierra Leone by outgoing President Julius Maada Bio in June 2023 also led that country toward isolation within ECOWAS and probable resignation from the regional body if the bloc pressed Mr. Bio too hard. In other words, the sanctions and threats of physical intervention did not induce a change of course in any of the five recalcitrant states, including Sierra Leone.
Mr. Tinubu’s volte-face at the Summit could induce ECOWAS members to remain together. However, the ramifications or price of saving the organization under such circumstances also implied that it no longer condemned military coups as an acceptable means of changing governments. That, in any event, reflected the reality that the wave of “non-democratic” changes of government had been gaining appeal in Africa during the past few years and was not being deterred by international condemnation.
Indeed, the perception of ECOWAS as an instrument to “safeguard democracy” may have been only a temporary one, given that this was by no means the primary aim of the body when it began in 1975. The main goal was the region’s economic integration. It was largely the influence of the West (particularly the United States and European Union) that pushed the bloc toward becoming a guardian of political morals.
But as the coup in Niger in July 2023 caused newly-installed Nigerian President Tinubu to react by threatening an ECOWAS military intervention to reverse the coup, it demonstrated that Mr. Tinubu was “tone-deaf” to the changing regional and African realities. As a result, the president’s climbdown on Feb. 24 highlighted his initial misstep and Nigeria’s declining diplomatic influence in the region, where it is the dominant economic and military power.
The Nigeria-based organization, SBM Intelligence, noted on March 1: “Blame for the handling of the Niger coup crisis has largely fallen on ECOWAS chairman President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria. His push for military intervention to restore constitutional order led to the formation of an alliance between the Nigerien junta and other ‘persecuted states’ like Mali and Burkina Faso. The lifting of sanctions under Tinubu’s leadership suggests a failure to learn from past mistakes, signaling the end of Nigerian diplomacy’s influence. The lack of training for new diplomats has resulted in thoughtless actions and statements from Abuja, highlighting a fundamental misunderstanding of regional politics and development dynamics. Furthermore, getting nothing in return signals that in the future, sanctions against smaller states who pursue the same path as Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali will be condemned weakly.”
Mr. Tinubu stated at the ECOWAS Summit on Feb. 24: “Everything we did was in hopes of persuading our brothers that there existed a better path, a path that would lead to genuine improvement of their people’s welfare through democratic good governance. And this was a path each of our nations had solemnly agreed with one another pursuant to formal regional treaty and protocol. However, the sanctions that we contemplated might help lead our brothers to the negotiating table have become a harsh stumbling block. In my mind and heart, that which is hurtful yet ineffective serves no good purpose and should be abandoned. ECOWAS was established for the unassailable objective of improving the lives of the people of this region through fraternal cooperation among all member states. This edifice was cemented on the strong foundation and apt conviction that, united as one, we can be the true masters of our destiny.”
So this was an inevitable but serious climbdown by Mr. Tinubu, but the consequences of both his initial stand in July 2023 and the French reaction to the Niger coup against President Mohamed Bazoum—who was elected in 2021—was also a possibly-avoidable turning point, for the worse, for French influence in West Africa.
The incident, and French insistence on a reversal of the Niger coup, was a flash point that severely weakened France’s role in Africa. Niger and the other two main coup states in West Africa—Mali and Burkina Faso—rejected a French position or diplomatic link in the region. Since France maintained a strong influence over Francophone states there, including a very real control over currency and security, all of which contributed to the French exchequer, this became a turning point for Paris.
So will the French government of President Emmanuel Macron also initiate a process of appeasement toward Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and, indeed, Senegal?
Will the United Kingdom initiate its own softening toward Sierra Leone, where, arguably, the impact of Mr. Bio’s “virtual coup” has been more damaging to the population there than the military coups have had in the other states?
After all, the impetus for the coups in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso—but perhaps not in Guinea—may have been primarily to restore honesty to the governance process, not merely to seek power for its own sake.
In all this, the United States acted with significant care despite a recent history of ham-fisted blundering in other African situations (such as in the conflict in Ethiopia). The U.S. policy toward Niger’s coup was to maintain a low profile and to resist public criticism of the coup leadership. This was mainly because of U.S. concern that the continuity of the regional fight against jihadist groups in the region needed to be maintained—and Niger was central to that.
As well, Washington was highly conscious of the growing Russian influence in West Africa, particularly in Niger, and it sought to counterbalance that.
“Nuland’s engagement was highly significant: she is the principal ‘anti-Russian’ in the State Dept., and has been the architect of US anti-Russian activities in Europe for some two decades. Her engagement in the Niger talks signified that Washington was aware that the Niger situation was all about countering Russian engagement in Niamey. And she was clearly blunt with the new Nigerien military Government, which met her with equal resolve.”
But the U.S. approach, far less public than the French, met with success. U.S. troops deployed on counter-jihadist operations remained in Niger. The French ambassador and the French forces were removed at the insistence of the coup leaders.
Even so, Washington’s ability to strenuously and overtly influence African states has substantially diminished, and future U.S. diplomacy toward the continent seems likely to succeed only if the United States is considerably more subtle in Africa than it has been in the past.
In the meantime, the situation in Sierra Leone has continued to deteriorate as Mr. Bio consolidates control after he was able to ride roughshod over the election process in June 2023.
Even China, which remained quiet during the overthrow of the Sierra Leonean election process, has “rewarded” the country with what could only be described as a pitiful support package—about $9.5 million—as a result of Mr. Bio’s February 2024 visit to Beijing, where he met with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. Even that entailed Chinese mortgages over key Sierra Leonean infrastructure. And as the Sierra Leone media noted, it came after China extracted billions of dollars worth of Sierra Leonean resources. However, the reality behind Beijing’s paltry aid package may reflect more the lack of resources available to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”) at this stage rather than any desire to stand aloof from Mr. Bio.
Meanwhile, the internal corruption in Sierra Leone is clearly expanding, even as suppression of the public continues.
In one recent instance, widely circulated on Sierra Leonean social media, French Montana, the son of the “first lady” Fatima Jebbeh Jabbie Bio (Mr. Bio’s wife), was reportedly arrested in France in February, attempting to smuggle millions of dollars in cash into the United Kingdom. At the same time, an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor flew into Sierra Leone in the same month, presumably to investigate irregularities and human rights violations in connection with the 2023 elections.
At the same time, on Feb. 29, the ECOWAS Court of Justice issued a significant finding in favor of a complainant about Sierra Leonean police violence, dating back to a filing in 2022 (during Mr. Bio’s first term). However, although the unrest in the country has not abated, Mr. Bio now feels assured of relative immunity in office, even if the country remains effectively isolated from the international community.
Significantly, although Beijing avoids criticism of African states on governance grounds, it is also not in a position to influence the states there with the economic resources that were available to China a decade or more ago.
With the decline in Chinese and Western investment, however, the economic plight of most Africans, including West Africans, continues to worsen in many respects. On Feb. 28, the Nigerian Central Bank announced its largest rate hike in absolute terms for some 17 years in a bid to dampen soaring inflation, which has led to trade union protests over price rises that have left people struggling to meet their basic needs. Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Olayemi Cardoso said the 4 percent increase to 22.75 percent was needed as previous rate increases had not cooled price pressures enough. Inflation in Nigeria in December 2023 was estimated at 28.9 percent, a level which has pushed much of the country into deprivation of basic necessities.
So the underlying reality is that Africa has been essentially on its own to the greatest degree since the beginning of colonialization. Amid the inevitable period of chaos—not confined to Africa—there will also inevitably be major structural change.
