Colonialism, Coups, and Commodities: Emerging Risks in the Sahel’s Former French Colonies
The Sahel region has significant energy and critical mineral deposits. While Mali and Burkina Faso possess gold, Niger is one of the world’s foremost suppliers of uranium and Guinea boasts large reserves of bauxite. Other critical minerals in the region include copper, phosphate, manganese, and lithium, with notable deposits of gold and iron ore. Given the demand for these commodities, with rising use of green technology and electric vehicles, the Sahel’s resource wealth should have acted as a catalyst for economic development. However, exploitation and corruption have prevented this from materialising and the region continues to suffer from “political instability, conflict, violence, and food insecurity. The Sahel’s abundance of commodities can thus be seen as a resource curse rather than a blessing.
Even within the context of Africa’s long history of instability, conflict, and violent regime changes, events in the Sahel over recent years stand out. The broader Sahel has seen a steady rise in the influence of violent domestic terrorist organisations – including groups with Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Wagner affiliations. In 2023, approximately 47 percent of all deaths related to terrorist activity globally came from this region, making the Sahel the global epicentre of terrorism.
In a vicious cycle of instability, escalating violence has both triggered and been exacerbated by a string of military takeovers in recent years within an area labelled the “coup belt”, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Of the countries to experience coups, Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Guinea (September 2021), Burkina Faso (January 2022 and September 2022), Niger (July 2023), and Gabon (August 2023) were all former French colonies. Questions have been raised concerning the legacy of French occupation in the region. While the litany of risks in these countries is exhaustive, ranging from terrorism to humanitarian crises, those related to the shifting control of critical commodities merit greater examination.
The Post-Colonial Period: End of an Era, or More of the Same?
While the applications for Sahelian resources have evolved, the desire to control them has remained consistent. In adherence with colonial-era power dynamics, France’s African policy centred around resource exploitation. Despite decolonisation in the mid-20th century (see image below), France continued to protect its interests by shifting its strategy from direct colonial governance to indirect neocolonial influence. Spearheaded by French President Charles de Gaulle, the strategy was known as La Françafrique, “characterised by decades of political meddling”. The drafting of new military and economic agreements enforced France’s authority by securing bases and guaranteeing access to strategically important resources, including uranium and oil. By influencing and selecting the governments to succeed French rule, Paris secured the approval needed to continue mining and military operations in its former colonies. Strategies were even implemented to expand La Françafrique to nearby countries that were considered strategically useful. For instance, during the 1960s, De Gaulle, who was interested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) copper, cobalt, and other minerals, supported secessionist forces fighting for their own state in the Katanga Province. Supported by the United States (US), their efforts instigated the downfall of DRC Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the installation of Joseph Mobutu, who acted as a proxy for French and US interests.
Map of Former French Colonies in the Sahel Region
Source:Deutsche Welle
Over time, France became increasingly unpopular with Sahelian countries, which strived for genuine independence. Guinea was the first French territory to reject continued subjugation in favour of immediate independence during de Gaulle’s 1958 referendum. Growing anti-French sentiment in the decolonisation period (1940s to the 1960s) created momentum for challenges in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Notable grievances included military interventions, the persistence of the CFA franc as the local currency, restrictive visa policies, and resource extraction. The exploitation of Sahelian commodities was one of the most contentious and blatant illustrations of French neocolonialism.
The Nail in the Coffin
Despite French President François Hollande announcing the end of Françafrique in October 2012, French influence remained. This was encapsulated by a 2014 parliamentary report that outlined the need for France to “maintain a military apparatus” in the region to “defend its interests”. Three months after Hollande’s proclamation, French troops were deployed to Mali to fight rebel forces as part of Operation Serval. This later expanded into Operation Barkhane, which sought to eradicate jihadism across five Sahelian countries, aligning with the broader US-led War on Terror. This endeavour failed its primary objective of curbing the spread of terrorism, and lent credibility to jihadist allegations of Western imperialism, contributing to political instability. Investigations have also revealed severe war crime accusations against French forces that collaborated with local units, including the slaughtering of civilians from the Peul ethnic group in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
In light of the country’s waning popularity, France withdrew its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in 2022 after the severing of defence contracts by the military juntas. The trio have also pulled out of the French-backed G5 anti-terrorism Sahel defence pact and expelled Western media entities, including Radio France International and France 24. The Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast have each made similar requests for French troops to leave. Demonstrating a broader Western retreat from the region, in April 2024, the US agreed to withdraw 1,000 soldiers from Niger and hand over its last military base in the country following a request from the country’s regime.
Western Grip on Sahelian Critical Commodities Weakens
The West has maintained its interest in the Sahel’s commodities since the colonial period. However, with anti-Western grievances concerning corruption and instability rising, the region’s former colonial rulers are losing their grip. A cogent example is how Western access to uranium and gold has become increasingly threatened in recent years.
Uranium
France has historically relied on Sahelian uranium to support its energy infrastructure. Proportionally, France is the most heavily reliant country in the world on nuclear power, with approximately 70 percent of its electricity produced from this energy source. Although a shift in French energy policy was announced in 2014 to reduce reliance on nuclear power by 2025, in 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for six new reactors, underscoring a long-term commitment to the power source. Furthermore, France has sourced a notable portion of their required uranium from Niger. In the last decade, 20 percent of imported uranium was sourced from Niger – making the nation its second largest importer, only behind Kazakhstan.
Although unpopular amongst the Nigerien population, French companies have maintained significant operations in the Nigerien uranium industry following the end of colonial rule. Despite French state company Orano (formerly Areva) mining uranium in Niger for over half a century through its subsidiaries, the country remains one of the poorest in the world, only benefitting from 12 percent of the market value of the uranium produced. In addition to the exploitative nature of the relationship, Orano’s activities have also caused an “ecological and health disaster”, with radioactive pollution and mining waste contaminating local soil and water sources.
In recent years, French influence has come under increasing scrutiny. After overthrowing Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum in 2023, coup leaders demanded France withdraw its remaining troops and expel its ambassador. The junta also seized operational control of Orano’s local mining firm Somaïr. Relations between the Nigerien junta and Orano have been on a downward trend ever since. In June 2024, Orano was stripped of its mining permit for the Imouraren project – one of the largest uranium deposits on earth. Subsequently, in October 2024, Orano announced that it would immediately halt all uranium production in the nation, citing the “highly deteriorated” situation.
Gold
The mining industry in Mali is dominated by gold production, with the commodity being a significant driver for the country’s economy in recent decades. As the nation’s most important export, gold accounted for more than 80 percent of the country’s total exports in 2023. The recent string of coups in Mali has made gold mining operations significantly more difficult for Western entities. For example, although not from a former colonial nation, Canadian firm Barrick Gold – one of the largest gold mining companies in the world – has found itself engaged in an intense legal battle with the Malian junta. Following the implementation of Mali’s new mining code in 2023, the situation escalated to a point in which Mali’s military government seized gold stocks from the Loulo-Gounkoto mine, stopped operations, and detained Barrick employees. In February 2025, Barrick signed a deal to end the multi-year dispute.
With the Barrick legal disaster, Western companies with projects in these nations will likely continue to leave the region as pervasive risks threaten operations and profitability. The Sahelian military governments have continuously tightened restrictions on mining operations for Western companies. In Mali, these restrictions have involved suspending all artisanal mining permits for foreign operators.
Out with the Old, in with the New
With the Sahel shifting away from the West, opportunities have arisen for rival powers to step in. Countries that did not experience a change in leadership, such as the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Chad, have remained broadly friendly to France. However, states that experienced successful coups, including Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, have shifted towards other, non-Western nations. This implies that the greater the level of instability in the country, the higher the likelihood for foreign actors to take advantage.
Russia
As relations between the two deteriorated, Mali’s junta terminated relations with France, turning to Russian private military company Wagner to “shore up its domestic political position”. Exerting control over the mines is a priority for Wagner, which was reconstituted as Russia’s Africa Corps in 2023. While it would be an error to divert responsibility away from France for cultivating an environment that enabled this to occur, Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns have played a key role in tipping the scale by effectively galvanising anti-Western support.
Mali is not an isolated example. By offering military assistance to Sahelian governments interested in strengthening their positions in the face of growing security threats, Moscow has gained a foothold elsewhere and signed contracts for commodities and trade route development. One example was in 2017, when the Kremlin exploited Paris’ decision to withdraw its forces from CAR by sending weapons and deploying military trainers from Wagner. The move paid off with Wagner’s front companies, such as Midas Resources SARLU, Lobaye Invest, and Diamville SAU, being granted permits by the CAR government to mine and export gold and diamonds. These companies have amassed profits over $2 billion, financing Russia’s wider regional efforts as well as the military campaign in Ukraine.
China
As China has continued to expand its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Sahel has fallen into the sights of Beijing, which, much like its Russian ally, has moved to capitalise on declining Western influence. For instance, Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium has invested heavily in Goulamina, a lithium production plant in Mali, while others have begun to exploit gold mines. China has also completed a 2,000km oil pipeline linking Niger to its southwestern neighbour Benin. Although China has involved itself in regional security affairs through arms sales, for Beijing, political and economic dominance trump military and security concerns. However, with a struggling property market, demographic issues, geopolitical confrontations, and a trade war causing an economic slowdown, China’s operations in the Sahel will likely depend upon the country’s ability to manage such issues.
UAE
Since the 2010s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has established defence and military relations with Sahelian states. This has included training and arms provision to counter jihadi terrorism in a range of countries. Simultaneously, the UAE is going toe to toe with Chinese investment in Africa. Between 2019 and 2023, the UAE invested approximately $110 billion USD in new projects in Africa across sectors including mining, oil, infrastructure and manufacturing. The UAE’s growing role in the Sahel primarily stems from an interest in “bolstering its influence in areas of competition with its Gulf rivals”. After Chad terminated its defence pact with France in November 2024, the country forged alliances with the UAE and Russia. However, the UAE has demonstrated greater interest in the Horn of Africa and countries along Africa’s eastern coast compared with former French Sahelian countries, which are predominantly located to the West. Abu Dhabi’s strategy of port diplomacy (see image below) provided a clear illustration of this emphasis.
Map of Ports and Logistics Platforms in Africa
Source: Defence 24
What’s Next?
The Sahel’s substantial resource wealth, which could have promoted economic prosperity, has instead been a critical factor in the instability, violence, and corruption that has plagued the region. Western influence in the area is poised to further diminish as the Sahelian juntas continue to push the West out in favour of Russia and China. While these shifts signal steps away from the lingering neocolonial structures that have existed in the post-colonial era, with exploitation set to continue at the hands of different parties, economic and social prosperity are by no means a likely outcome. For as long as authoritarian military regimes remain in power and suppress democracy, the Sahelian people will continue to suffer from an indefinite cycle of instability, corruption and violence.
Niger Coup: What Could've Left the Sahel's Last Bastion so Vulnerable?
Introduction
Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum has been ousted from power, claims the presidential guard, who appeared on national television late on Wednesday night, mere hours after he was captured in the country’s presidential palace. The coup artists claim to have suspended all political institutions in the country. General Abdourahamane Tiani, the head of Niger’s presidential guard, who previously was rumoured to have been in negotiations with the president after Bazoum planned to demote him from head of the organisation, was initially challenged by the wider armed forces and national guard, who threatened to attack the insurrectionists unless they stepped down; those same armed forces now back the coup against Bazoum to supposedly prevent a bloodbath, even as Bazoum pledged to protect the democratic gains made in the country, in spite of recent events.
The following report provides a summary of the potential contributors to the instability in Niger, including the precarious security situation, growing anti-French and pro-Russian sentiments, dwindling food supply, political mismanagement of the world’s fastest growing population, and a sharp rise in the price of fuel.
National Overview
Niger is a multicultural yet overwhelmingly Muslim North-West African nation, around double the size of Texas or France, bordering Nigeria to the South, Mali to the West, Algeria and Libya to the North, and Chad to the East, as well as other smaller nations in all directions. It usually resides at the bottom of most indicators of human development and is one of the poorest nations on earth, with a population of around 25 million people. It is a former French colony, with French being the language of administration. France remains one of its primary import and export partners. Moreover, the country still uses the Franc as its currency.
The Hausa (also majorly present in northern Nigeria) live mainly in the South and centre of the country and are the largest ethnic group at 51% of the population. The Zarma-Songhai make up 21% of the population and primarily reside in the nation’s southwest. 80% of the country’s area is covered by the Sahara Desert. This area, however, only contains 20% of the country’s population, made up primarily of the Tuareg and other ethnic groups, which make up the remainder of Niger’s population. The sheer size of the Sahara makes water scarce, particularly in the north of the country. The South, however, has a more tropical climate with higher rainfall. It is home to both French and American military bases, with both countries involved in the international effort against Jihadist groups in the Sahel region of North West Africa; a section of this region forms part of Niger’s territory.
Situational Background
Niger is no stranger to coups and coup attempts, with military officers overthrowing presidents in 1974, 1996, 1999, and 2010. Bazoum’s ascent to the presidency, however, was the country’s first ever case of a peaceful transfer of power from one president to another, despite an attempted coup just two days before Bazoum’s inauguration in 2021 as well as accusations of fraud from the second place candidate, Mahamane Ousmane, whose supporters have held mass rallies. Bazoum was the preferred successor of his predecessor, Mahamadou Issoufou, who stepped down voluntarily. Rather than a break with Niger’s tradition of military coups, this suggests an aberration created by the transfer of power from one chairman of the board to another, instead of one governmental apparatus handing over to another.
Yet, Bazoum’s regime had begun to be viewed within the country as increasingly repressive and not particularly popular. Additionally, his predecessor may have been viewed internationally as an effective democratic leader, but this view is rarely found in Niger itself, with wide scale industrial action taking place under both Bazoum’s and Issoufou’s reigns respectively.
Militants in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin
Bazoum, seen by many within Niger as a puppet of French authorities, has stated that France’s anti-Jihadist force in the region is a “relative failure, it’s a shared failure, a failure of the entire coalition." He also stated that France’s troop drawdown in the region would have only a limited impact. In fact, on the same day that Bazoum’s election victory was certified by the nation’s constitutional court, armed men on motorbikes attacked a string of villages on the Mali border, leaving 137 dead in the nation’s deadliest violence in recent times.
There are now more fatalities linked to militant islamist groups in the Sahel than in any other region of Africa. In fact, violence in the Sahel increases year on year, while fatalities linked to islamist groups in other parts of Africa have fallen.
In the West, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), made up of various Al Qaeda affiliates, with the Macina Liberation Front (FLM) being the one most active in the Sahel, are the largest contributors to fatalities linked to islamist violence in the region. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies attributes these two groups with the majority of violent attacks and islamist militant violence in the Sahel, which now accounts for 60% of such violence across the continent.
This has led to the displacement of approximately 2.5 million people across the region, although Burkina Faso accounts for the majority of those displaced. Some of the latest data from 2021, the year of Bazmoun’s inauguration, showed a 50% rise in battles between JNIM forces and security forces, while battles with ISGS fell by 45%.
The main groups operating in Eastern Niger, as part of the Lake Chad Basin, are Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), and Ansaru. These groups are also present in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. The Lake Chad Basin is now the second highest region in Africa for fatalities linked to militant islamist groups. Its trend is overall downward, however, as opposed to the increasing violence in the Sahel. As of 2021, the Basin saw a 32% drop in militant islamist activity and a 21% drop in reported fatalities linked to militant islamist groups. Boko Haram is the group most on the decline, with a drop in linked fatalities of 46%, while ISWA only saw a drop of 3%. This discrepancy is most likely due to the death of Boko Haram’s longtime leader, Abubakur Shekau, in May 2021 and subsequent regrouping.
The relative rise in violence in the Sahel, and the drop in Lake Chad, present new problems for security forces in Niger. In 2012, the vast majority of violence that forces in Niger had to contend with was situated in the east of the nation, in the Lake Chad Basin. Although violence in the Basin has recently been on the decline, the sharp rise in violence in the Sahel, contained in parts of western Niger, leaves the counter-islamist-militant coalition split across the country with only vast desert and a small section of tropical savannah linking the two fronts, making transfers of troops and supplies by land vulnerable and logistically difficult.
Growing Anti-French Sentiment and Increasing Russian Influence Across the Region
There is little information on why the same presidential guard that fought to protect Bazoum’s life in March 2021, has captured him and supplanted Niger’s political institutions. There are serious concerns that the Wagner group is connected. Fans were flamed by Wagner Group Commander Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attendance at a recent Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, suggesting Wagner and the Russian state remain partners on the continent. Prigozhin's public statements, characterising the coup as “a battle by the people of Niger against their colonisers”, were especially alarming. The Wagner Group’s goals as a private military company (PMC) are to secure profit while advancing Russian socio-economic and foreign policy interests.
Niger and the wider region of Francophone North-West Africa have come under increasing Russian influence in recent times. This has combined with existing anti-colonial and anti-French sentiment to create a perfect storm of public pressure against the French and the West as a whole. The same week as the coup in Niger, the new Mali constitution, brought in via referendum, demoted French as an official language to the status of a “working” language. This subsequently promoted a number of native languages to official status.
The French military’s operations in Mali were always only somewhat supported by the population, with one especially gruesome event where a French air strike killed 22 people at a wedding, exemplifying the tension, propensity for callousness, and frequent unforced errors made by the French military. The French government asserted that those killed were Jihadis, while the UN concluded that they were overwhelmingly civilians. Mali has now turned to the Wagner Group for military aid in fighting insurgencies, and expelled its French forces.
Bazoum, however, has identified France as an easy target for "the populist discourse of certain opinions, especially on social media among African youth” and that “its adversaries want to project an image of France as a neocolonialist power. Some people stick to that cliché, which is not true, but which is very useful for propaganda.” He stated that Wagner had been ineffective in Mali, and that the number of refugees entering Niger from Mali had actually increased since the departure of French forces in the region.
With many of Niger’s neighbours creeping out of western influence, the nation seemed increasingly to be the last bastion of the so-called “coup belt”, a grouping of predominantly Francophone Central and West African countries.
The French government in particular came to view Niger as a partner of last resort, as its other options dissipated. Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, a senior Sahel analyst at the International Crisis Group speaking to the Financial Times, said Bazoum’s pro-western stance had received a mixed reception at home, where he had taken “quite a hit”. “The same anti-French discourse that has proliferated in Mali and Burkina Faso is also present in Niger”. More specifically, Bazoum had complained of disinformation campaigns by Wagner against his government. Perhaps then it is no surprise that supporters of the Niger coup have been seen waving Russian flags all over the country, seen by many as Niger’s ally against western hegemony and colonialism.
Wagner’s preference for payment in natural resources, most commonly valuable raw minerals, is not news. Niger produces 7% of the world’s Uranium, with most of it ending up in France for use in the nation’s many nuclear power stations, which produce around 70% of French power. Around three quarters of France’s Uranium comes from just four countries: Kazakhstan, Australia, Niger, and Uzbekistan. However, Niger has been diversifying its customer base, with significant shares of the country’s uranium now being sold to companies based in Canada and China, with each nation’s operation in Niger maintaining its own extraction sites.
Therefore, the theory has been circulated that the coup in Niger achieves two goals for Wagner and the Russian government. Firstly, Wagner may now be able to operate in Niger in exchange for uranium, which can then be used in Russia for military and/or civilian purposes, or sold on international markets.
Secondly, Wagner may develop the relationships necessary to divert significant amounts of Uranium away from the French energy market, jeopardising the price of energy in France and bringing an energy-borne cost of living crisis there that countries dependent on Russian gas have been experiencing in the rest of Europe. This aspect of the coup will develop further in the coming weeks and is set for much speculation.
The Ukraine War and Global Fertiliser Supply
Much of Niger’s land is used to produce food. Despite this, the country’s largest import is rice, at a value of $275m. This demonstrates a caloric deficit in the country’s domestic food supply and leaves Niger’s food supply vulnerable to international pressures. For instance, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has left the developing world in the lurch. Russia is the largest agricultural fertiliser producer in the world. As such, the supply of such fertilisers has decreased all across the African continent. This is because most fertilisers are produced using coal or natural gas, the global price of which has led to a sharp increase in the price of fertilisers and subsequently food. As a result, the president of the African Development Bank predicts a 20% drop in food production across the continent. At present, around 44% of Nigerien children are malnourished, and around 18% of the population was predicted to have reached crisis levels of food insecurity between June 2022 and June 2023, this was twice as many as the same 12 month period previously. Niger’s population is also uniquely young, with an average population of around 14, which makes the population particularly exposed to food shortages as such a large proportion of the population are children.
A recent emergency response plan from the Nigerien government was budgeted at $280m; however, it became clear that it included a $200m shortfall. Additionally, the UN Food Programme has slashed food rations by 50% since January 2022 in response to the increasing global scarcity of food. So many children are now entering clinics with malnutrition that clinics across the country no longer have the resources to treat them, with many families not even being able to travel to clinics, being forced to watch their children die at home.
The Silent Pandemic of Climate Change
The Ukraine war is one reason for the rise in hunger, but another is climate change. Thousands of farmers in Niger are facing the oncoming storm of what has been called the “silent pandemic”. Niger is especially vulnerable to global warming, with temperatures rising there at a rate 1.5 times faster than the rest of the world. Nigerien farmers are being forced to adapt to their new environment as rainfall both becomes more scarce and increasingly erratic, leading to a cycle of droughts that are progressively eroding the 14% of the country’s land that is arable. As a result, the nation has not had a good harvest for around a decade, with 2021 seeing a 39% drop in cereal production.
Not only can we expect further drops in quantity production but also in quality. Changing conditions in which many grains are grown also have an impact on the quality of that supply and the nutritional benefit of the final product crop. For instance, high levels of atmospheric CO2 lead to a reduction in protein percentage. This, combined with high temperatures limiting the supply of glutenin protein polymers, is likely to have a negative effect on the ability of grain to be turned into dough and thus baked into processed food products such as bread. Additionally, heat stress over 30oC (with temperatures in Niger often reaching 40oC) reduces the rate at which starch accumulates, leading to grains grown in hotter environments containing fewer calories than those grown in more temperate conditions. With the world heating up, the problem of reduced calorie content in grain suggests obvious problems whereby no costs are reduced in production but the final product becomes progressively of less nutritional worth as the planet’s temperature rises.
These factors combine to create what is known as the “lean season”, the period between harvests of about four months. The lean season begins earlier every year, leading many to abandon their villages and settlements in the knowledge that to remain is to ensure starvation, and the only chance they have of survival resides in fleeing either to the cities or relatively aimlessly through the rural areas.
The World’s Fastest Population Growth and the Traitor Narrative
President Bazoum had attempted to make reducing family size a core tenet of his policy programme, with Niger having the world’s highest birth rate. Niger’s population is on track to triple by 2050, from 24 million to 68 million people. For many, this seems to allow Niger to share in the benefits of other populous nations such as China, India, and Nigeria in gaining political clout with the population. However, there are many warnings being made on the link between a high birth rate and rampant poverty.
The attitude most prevalent in Niger, however, is that there is much land but not enough people to fill it. In fact, Garé Amadou, editor in chief of the La Nation newspaper, states that many in the country believe the concerns over population growth are “just something that worries western countries” and that a large proportion of Nigeriens believe that there is a clandestine foreign agenda to contain Africa’s burgeoning population.
Bazoum's public pronouncement of his negative feelings towards rapid population growth has been an act of self-sabotage, especially in combination with specific policy measures. Many in Niger are not comfortable with a president, who has banned his ministers from polygamous marriage and declared the practise “a bad thing” in a country where a third of the population lives in such a marriage. Bazoum has also publicly advocated for the establishment of all girls boarding schools, where children would be educated away from their families by the state. Both of these measures are rooted in the noble goal of keeping women and girls in education for as long as possible. However, many commentators, both within and without Nigerien society, find it hard to comprehend how its president can believe that these measures would ever be popular.
In fact, these public pronouncements have been read by many within the country as rejections of Nigerien culture and the prescriptions of the Koran. This has created a common view that Bazoum is what in the west would be referred to as “virtue signalling” or “making a contribution to moral discourse that aims to convince others that one is ‘morally respectable”. In this case, the Nigerien population views the “others” that Bazoum is trying to convince of his moral respectability as western observers and authorities. This has contributed to the image of the President as being too pro-western, anti-tradition, and a puppet of the French and American governments.
However, almost all involved in the subject, both nationally and internationally, agree that an average of below three children per woman, is a necessary precondition for rapid economic development. Additionally, the Koran does not advocate for the maximum number of wives and children, but for men to have many children and more than one wife as long as they can be provided for, something that Niger’s economy is not capable of doing so healthily. Additionally, many religious leaders in the country are showing the way on increasing the use of contraception to prevent couples from having children they are unable to afford.
There has also been a significant cultural transition in maternity wards, with wives now giving birth in the company of their husbands, something quite rare until relatively recently. Furthermore, pregnant women are receiving more attention and care from their partners during pregnancy. However, the director of Issaka Gazoby maternity hospital in the capital Niamey, Mady Nayama, states that “population growth in Africa is frightening” and that the lack of resources available in the country to sustain such a fast growing population leads to intense poverty with “poverty that turns these children into vagabonds.” Niger’s birth rate is still the highest in the world but has been slowly declining for around 20 years. However, Nayama claims that many are still resistant to change and that “our religion tells us that, if God gives a child, he will feed it. But that’s not happening.”
If Bazoum had communicated the link between lowering the birth rate and increasing economic growth to the population, in addition to leaning into the efforts of religious leaders and medical professionals to increase the use of contraception, he may have been aided in steering the political ship away from the erroneous course of mistrust in the nation’s political institutions and making his own voice the herald of unpopular cultural change.
The End of Nigerian Fuel Subsidies and the Collapse of the Black Market
Most coups and coup attempts in Niger come about to secure the revenues of uranium and/or oil exports from the country. Although, it is not yet certain that this is the case here. The motivations of the coup artists remain elusive, with only their public statements to rely on, the candour of which cannot yet be evaluated. What seems more likely is that the very presence of oil and gold in the country has contributed to political instability, in addition to oil price shocks as a result of policy decisions made in neighbouring countries.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu announced during his inauguration speech in May that the Nigerian “fuel subsidy is gone!”, with measures already taking effect in the country. The price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) rose rapidly to somewhere between NGN 488 per litre in the capital and NGN 555 per litre in Borno State.
Niger has also been affected. The major population centres of the south have become dependent on cheap, smuggled, Nigerian-subsidised petrol. Usually arriving at illegal fuel warehouses and being sold on the black market via touts waving petrol canisters by the roadside. The sudden end of subsidies has led to shortages in Niger’s most populated areas and sharp price rises. Previously, a litre of petrol could be bought for around 250 francs (around 45 cents US), but this has risen to around 600 Francs, more expensive than even at regular petrol stations. The rush on those petrol stations is especially severe in the south but is occurring all over the country. According to officials at the nation’s oil ministry, the price of petrol at regular stations has increased tenfold as demand at the pump increases. Consequently, transport costs have increased exponentially. For instance, at markets in the south, the price of a 100 kg sack of maize has risen by 4,000 Francs to 28,000, worsening an already precarious situation around the country’s food supply.
SONIDEP, the Nigerien Company for Oil Products, is coping with the sudden shortfall with reserves from the country’s only oil refinery. However, those reserves will not last forever, and eventually a decision will have to be made on whether to purchase fuel from overseas or begin to operate its sole refinery at maximum output.
The black market also functioned as a primary source of employment for many young men in the south of the country. It is now feared that many of this working-age population will be forced to turn to crime, or worse, to put increasingly expensive food on the table.
Conclusion
This political risk report highlights several key factors contributing to the instability in Niger. The recent ousting of President Bazoum by the presidential guard, leading to the suspension of political institutions, underscores the country's historical vulnerability to coups and power struggles. The precarious security situation, marked by increasing violence from militant Islamist groups in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, poses a significant challenge to the nation's stability. Additionally, growing Russian influence left Niger isolated as a bastion of unpopular former colonisers.
Niger's vulnerability to external factors is evident in its food supply situation. Reliance on food imports, particularly rice, coupled with the disruption caused by the Ukraine war and global fertiliser supply issues, exacerbates food insecurity and malnutrition in the country. Climate change is also a critical factor affecting agricultural productivity, contributing to the "silent pandemic" of climate change.
The trajectory of Niger's population growth is a matter of concern, with an anticipated tripling of the population by 2050. The government's attempts to address this issue, such as advocating for smaller family sizes and promoting girls' education, have been met with resistance, leading to perceptions of the president being out of touch with the country's cultural norms and influenced by Western interests.
Furthermore, the recent end of fuel subsidies in Nigeria has had adverse effects on Niger, leading to shortages and price hikes in the country, exacerbating the already challenging economic situation.
Niger faces a complex web of political, security, economic, and social challenges that require careful and strategic management to foster stability and address the underlying causes of instability. Only time will tell if this comes to pass.