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There is very little that is known about Niger Republic that makes it romantic. Muhammadu Buhari may think otherwise. Throughout the eight better-to-forget years that he prevailed over Nigeria as President, Buhari never left Nigerians in doubt that his heart was in Niger Republic.
Nigeria may have harboured and nourished his physical body, but the retired military general had no qualms letting the country that elected him President know that he did not belong entirely to them. It was not a matter of belonging to no none and belonging to all, as he put it in a different setting. Buhari’s heart belonged to Niger Republic. It could indeed be said that he needed Nigeria merely for political purposes, knowing realistically that the country offered him what his preferred country could not offer him. He was often not the one to pretend about his fraternal loyalty.
Having risen through the political and military ranks in Nigeria and knowing as he did that laws in Nigeria are made to be trampled upon by those who are supposed to enforce them, Buhari spent his years as President riding roughshod over Nigerians. He particularly rubbed it in on the country that he owed equal, if not more, attention to Niger Republic. He did not hide that his family root was over there, so his loyalty was not in doubt. Consequently, he moved, with no recourse to either the National Assembly nor any other coordinate authority in Nigeria, to service the needs of Niger Republic the best he could.
Among others, he expended hundreds of millions of Nigerian naira to buy administrative vehicles for the other country, an expenditure that could not have been captured under any sub-head in Nigeria’s annual estimate. Of course, to all practical purposes on such issues, the National Assembly did not exist. The issue of raising query about how Niger Republic qualified for a cut of Nigeria’s budget never came up.
When he set out to modernize the old rail system in Nigeria, a project executed with money borrowed by the country from China and multi-lateral agencies, what did Buhari do? He factored in the interest of Niger Republic, over and above parts of Nigeria. Yet, Nigerians are the people who will repay the loan in due course. The Senate stayed mute.
Towards the end of his presidency, for reasons best known to him, Buhari found its necessary to remind Nigerians that Niger Republic was the home he craved for. In a public message he directed to whosoever it may concern, the departing President, who was formally heading to his home in Daura, Katsina State, to enjoy the sunset of his life, told Nigerians that if, in the wake of his exit, the incoming government ever disturbed him, he would retire to Niger Republic. The message was clear: Niger is Buhari’s haven of tranquillity, the land beyond the reach of Nigeria’s unending problems, an abode where a past President of a country who unilaterally deployed the wayward resources of his country to cater for Niger’s needs, can come to find peace and repose. That was how Buhari configured it.
Buhari left Nigeria in turmoil at the end of his presidency, but that did not seem to bother him one bit. Insecurity still ravaged the land as he left, with all manner of criminals and murderers stalking innocent citizens, preventing farmers from going to farms, etc. The national election he promised to deliver as his legacy ended up leaving all decent citizens deflated and embarrassed. The naira remained confused and abused in all ramifications in which a credible national currency are measured.
Three months after Buhari’s tenure ended, the legitimacy of the government that succeeded his remains hanging. This is the legacy Buhari left behind. All that is no longer his concern, anyway. If the country will not allow him to rest, even in the face of crisis, he will cross over to the haven in Niger Republic. Or so he thought. Buhari must have figured that Mohamed Bazoum, the mild-mannered President in Niger, who related with him more like with a benign uncle, would always be in office. Bazoum had awarded Buhari the highest national honour in Niger Republic, with good reasons, of course.
But now, Bazoum is gone, toppled from the saddle by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, commander of the Presidential Guard. The new strongman in Niamey kicked up a heavy storm the day he moved against his former boss on July 26, 2023. Nigeria, leading a rather uninspiring and weak Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has been running kitikiti katakata since Tchiani took control of Niger. Anyone in Abuja or anywhere else who thought the matter would be that simple to resolve and that Tchiani could so easily be scared out must be a poor student of the dynamics of the politics of Niger Republic and indeed Africa. Even for the known economic poverty of Niger Republic, so much is at stake in the leadership issue that Tchiani has ignited.
The question of how Niger Republic remains as poor as it is, in spite of being the source of substantial supply of uranium to France and many other superpowers, including the United States of America, remains critical. Exploring that question can be insightful in navigating such dust as Tchiani kicked up and those who are hollering over the disruption. Not that Tchiani holds any abiding solution.
Understanding the economic thread in the issues in this area, also helps to explain why Russia’s Vladmir Putin and China are quick to offer the new Niger leader solidarity. This complicated background to what ordinarily looked like a simple matter of a general throwing an elected politician off the horse ought to inform Nigeria to get more serious and quit this risible posture of a big brother shouting across the border. An uncle, maybe, but certainly one with a drastically whittled down leverage.
If Nigeria or its leadership at the moment pretends not to understand the enormity of the damage the 2023 general election did to the country, Tchiani may be too willing to tell the country. He has reportedly made allusions already. Circumspection is, therefore, the word. The primary expression of foreign policy as an extension of the domestic policy still holds value. That being so, Nigeria’s foreign policy, whether as it concerns Niger Republic or any other place, simply needs to be realistically lowkey for now. The domestic front is not just fragile, it is combustible. Everything is contestable and unsettled. Tchiani knows that. The expanding league of undemocratically led governments in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali know this.
Liberia’s George Opong Weah was not speaking exactly in parables when he reportedly said in the wake of ECOWAS threat to Niger’s new leaders, that “As long as ECOWAS tolerates institutional coups that allow lifetime presidencies and fraudulent declaration of election results, manipulation of judicial announcements, there will always be military coups…We cannot condemn military coups when we do not condemn those who carry out institutional coups…” Here lies big brother’s predicament.
In all this, the man who contributed overwhelmingly in hobbling Nigeria, with his backup plan to find a haven in Niger Republic, if Nigeria became rather unsettling, may have found his plans gone burst. Buhari may now have no choice than to stay back fully in Nigeria, in Daura. That will be most appropriate, so that he can continue to enjoy what he made of Nigeria.
