In the intricate geopolitics of West Africa, a common adage often rings true: he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind. While regional diplomatic circles were still scrutinizing the financial and logistical threads of a thwarted conspiracy in Cotonou, a plot where the fingerprints of Niamey’s regime and its staunch allies were prominently identified, retribution arrived swiftly. On the night of August 28-29, the very core of General Abdourahamane Tiani’s power in Niamey trembled under the crackle of automatic weapons and the thud of artillery fire. A tragic irony, yet a sequence of absolute political logic in Sahel current affairs.

The Niamey-Lomé-Ouagadougou axis, exporting instability

For months, the Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (CNSP) in Niamey had sought to shore up its own vulnerabilities by forging a strategic and financial alliance with Captain Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso and Faure Gnassingbé in Togo. By actively collaborating with Ibrahim Traoré and Faure Gnassingbé to fund attempts at destabilizing neighboring Bénin, the Tiani regime seemingly believed it could export its internal contradictions and neutralize a perceived troublesome neighbor. This opportunistic coalition between Tiani, Traoré, and Gnassingbé served a clear agenda: to weaken surrounding democracies, thereby legitimizing military authoritarianism and imposing a new regional power order. However, funding chaos in a neighboring state when one’s own foundations are fragile demonstrates a significant strategic blindness.

The inherent fragility of military rule

The intense gunfire heard around Air Base 101 and the presidential palace in Niamey underscores a reality that the propaganda of the Alliance des États du Sahel can no longer conceal: the rot was always present. By resorting to force to overthrow constitutional order in July 2023, General Tiani did not merely seize power; he validated the rifle as the sole method of succession. By sponsoring strong-arm tactics externally alongside Ibrahim Traoré and with the discreet backing of Faure Gnassingbé, all while contending with escalating insecurity and simmering discontent within his own barracks, the Nigerien junta found itself ensnared in its own trap:

• Resource diversion: Crucial financial and military efforts, which should have been dedicated to counter-terrorism and troop cohesion, were instead redirected towards clandestine operations for regional political destabilization.
• Command chain fragmentation: The Nigerien army, having been politicized and fractured into various factions, now projects an image of an unorganized institution. When officers observe their superiors backing coups abroad, they internalize the notion that power in Niamey is equally susceptible to seizure by any audacious armed group.
• Erosion of security commitments: After three years of transition without a clear electoral timeline and facing questionable security outcomes on the ground Sahel, the frustration of rank-and-file troops inevitably catches up with the high command.

The biter bit

The political history of the Sahel does not forgive strategic amateurism. A regime’s stability cannot be built upon the ruin of neighboring states. By allegedly co-financing unrest in Cotonou, with the complicity of Ibrahim Traoré and Faure Gnassingbé, ostensibly as a diversion, the Tiani regime merely expedited the exposure of its own internal weaknesses. The tremors of that night of August 29 in Niamey are not an isolated incident but a symptom of a system nearing its breaking point. General Tiani is now discovering, to his detriment, an immutable truth: the weapons and financing networks used to destabilize others are precisely the same ones that ultimately turn against oneself. In the face of Niamey’s spectacular governmental instability and the revelation of these interference networks, a pressing question now confronts the rest of the region: Should Faure Gnassingbé and Ibrahim Traoré also begin to prepare?