Anti-American Protests in Niger

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Togo sets new election date; Jacob Zuma’s election ban is overturned, clearing way for him to run in South Africa’s May election; and artists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo take center stage at the Venice Biennale.

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Hundreds of people protested in Niger’s capital city of Niamey over the weekend, demanding that U.S. troops leave the country in demonstrations whipped up by Niger’s junta. Russian anti-aircraft defense systems and 100 instructors arrived just two days before the protests, following a defense pact signed with Russia in December. The Russian troops are part of Africa Corps—Moscow’s state-recognized replacement for the paramilitary Wagner Group.

Earlier this month, Niger’s military leadership posted audio footage on social media in which leaders complained that a bilateral cooperation agreement with the U.S. government, enacted in 2012, had only served Washington’s interests and was illegal.

“How can we talk about the interests of Niger when Americans think that their enemies must necessarily be our enemies. How can we talk about the interests of Niger when the USA denies us even the basic right to choose our partners?” a speaker said in the recording, presumably referring to Niger’s new Russian pact.

The junta appeared to use an artificial intelligence-generated voice speaking in English to list several grievances, including the claim that Washington had refused to share counterterrorism intelligence with Niger despite the latter hosting a U.S. military base.

Last month, Niger ended its military agreement with the United States. Niger’s military spokesperson, Col. Amadou Abdramane, cited reasons including the “condescending attitude” of U.S. officials in attempting to lecture Niamey over ties with Russia and Iran. The decision followed a visit by Molly Phee, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, and Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of the U.S. Africa Command.

More than 1,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed at a U.S. military air base in Agadez, a desert city nearly 600 miles northeast of Niamey, where the United States operates drones in order to monitor jihadi activities.

As this newsletter noted at the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, demands that Africans pick a side appear patronizing at best and neocolonial at worst. Such rhetoric equips authoritarian leaders with an easy argument against Western nations. The Nigerien military and Moscow clearly understand that the argument works.

Niamey has ejected diplomats and troops from former colonial power France and revoked an anti-migration deal with the European Union, which prompted a return of migrants and smugglers through Agadez—a spike that is worrying EU officials.

Niger’s junta had been hostile toward most Western nations—except the United States, which it considered a key partner until this month. Washington had invested millions of dollars on its air base and in the training of Niger’s troops, including Nigerien coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who was trained by the U.S. military.

Niger’s junta now perceives the U.S. military bases as being more beneficial for the United States than they are for Niger, which has been fighting jihadis for over a decade. Since 2017, the U.S. military has stopped joint operations in the country after four U.S. soldiers were killed while hunting for an Islamic State leader.

Shortly after the July 2023 coup, Washington further limited its information-gathering on Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliates to focus only on the protection of U.S. assets. Then insurgent attacks surged, and Niger, seeking weapons and support, turned to Russia. In a further blow to U.S.-Niger ties, on Monday Gen. Tchiani held a meeting with China’s ambassador to Niger.

Niger’s leadership has also held a series of meetings with Iranian officials over a suspected mining deal following similar discussions in January, after which Tehran announced that it would help Niger circumvent international sanctions imposed on it as a result of the coup.

Yet the demonstrations organized by the junta and the audio deliberately released in English can be seen as part of an attempt to force Washington to work with Niger alongside its preferred partner, Russia, in fighting insurgencies.

“In an era of enhanced geopolitical competition, African countries have become newly empowered by their abundant choices that are upending traditional power dynamics,” Cameron Hudson wrote recently in Foreign Policy.

There is a significant disconnect between U.S. policy priorities in Africa and what Africans prioritize, as consistently highlighted in surveys by the African polling firm Afrobarometer. It’s clear that the United States and Europe need to change their approach toward Africa or risk permanently ceding influence to the Persian Gulf states, China, and Russia.

Wednesday, April 17: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visits Tunisia.

Wednesday, April 17, to Saturday, April 20: The spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund continue in Washington, D.C, as African leaders call for reform to the institutions.

Thursday, April 18, to Saturday, April 20: Egypt hosts the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Conference, marking the first time that such a conference has been held in the Middle East and North Africa.

Friday, April 19: The U.N. Security Council discusses Sudan.

Togo resets legislative elections. Under public pressure, Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé has rescheduled the April 20 parliamentary elections, which he had delayed indefinitely, to a new date of April 29. The government had banned protests during the delay, claiming they would “disturb public order” after opposition parties called for mass demonstrations against a new constitution that would scrap direct presidential elections. The National Assembly is dominated by Gnassingbé’s party, but if the opposition parties win enough seats, they could stop the legislation, which they argue is a ploy to keep Gnassingbé in power after almost 20 years in office.

Sudan’s grim milestone. Monday marked the one-year anniversary of Sudan’s civil war, which erupted on April 15, 2023. The war began as a dispute over plans to merge the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti) into the national army. Conflict broke out as Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and the RSF (under Hemeti) vied for control of Sudan.

U.N. relief agencies are already reporting deaths from starvation as famine looms and the war draws in regional militias and nations including Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Ukraine. The war has displaced more than 10 million people. France held a conference for Sudan in Paris on Monday, raising 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in international aid. It was not attended by representatives of the warring generals.

Nigeria’s corruption probe. Nigeria’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, recovered 30 billion naira ($24 million) as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption by Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Minister Betta Edu. President Bola Tinubu suspended Edu in January and ordered an investigation of the alleged diversion of $640,000 of public funds into a personal bank account. Edu denies any wrongdoing.

The Venice Biennale begins April 20 and features more extensive African participation than ever before. Benin, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Tanzania are presenting for the first time among a total of 13 African nations, up from nine nations in 2022. A further 18 national pavilions from Europe and North America are showcasing artists from the African diaspora.

The most interesting may be the Dutch pavilion, which will be represented by the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, a group of acclaimed plantation workers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A video of a wooden statue depicting Belgian colonial administrator Maximilien Balot, killed during a 1931 uprising in Congo, will be livestreamed to the pavilion from the White Cube gallery in Lusanga, a town nearly 350 miles east of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

Belgium has a violent history in the DRC, which it ruled from 1885 until 1960—first as the private fiefdom of King Leopold II and then as a colony. The Balot statue is part of a restitution debate and is currently on loan from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to Congo for six months until November. The screen showing the sculpture will be positioned so that viewers are facing the adjacent Belgian pavilion, about 15 feet away.

The Nigerian pavilion has been organized by the soon-to-open Museum of West African Art in Benin City, which will house some of the stolen and now repatriated Benin Bronzes. It is Nigeria’s second-ever pavilion amid a booming art industry. Among eight Nigerian artists’ works are 150 exact clay replicas of Benin Bronzes by artist Yinka Shonibare.

South Africa’s former president, Jacob Zuma, can run in the May 29 presidential election, an electoral court ruled last week. The decision overturns a ban by the electoral commission due to Zuma’s 15-month prison sentence after being arrested in June 2021 for defying a court order. The electoral body has lodged an appeal to reinstate the ban. Zuma heads a new political party—the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, named after the African National Congress’s armed wing during the anti-apartheid struggle and known by the acronym MK—that is widely expected to take votes away from the ruling ANC in Zuma’s home province, KwaZulu-Natal, and in Gauteng—South Africa’s most populous province and the country’s largest GDP contributor.

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Why is Senegal’s parliament missing women? In the Continent, Borso Tall lambasts new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye for appointing just four women to his cabinet, the same as his predecessors. For the first time in its history, Senegal has a polygamous president. Between them, Faye and new Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko “have as many wives as there are women ministers in their new cabinet.”

Tall writes that “[i]f the absence of women ministers is worrying, so too is the deletion of the words ‘women’ and ‘child protection’ from the name of the” former Ministry of Women, Family, and Child Protection. It has become the Ministry of Family and Children.

U.S. indirect funding of Rwanda-backed rebels? In the Guardian, Vava Tampa, the founder of Save the Congo—a Congolese-led campaign group—argues that attacks by M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo can end if the United States and United Kingdom stop funding Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime. “We know this works because when the US, UK and others briefly stopped arming and funding Kagame in 2012—after media coverage—the M23 was defeated,” he writes.

Chibok girls, 10 years on. It has been a decade since 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from Chibok, Nigeria by Islamist group Boko Haram. About 80 remain captive. In BBC News, Yemisi Adegoke interviews some of the rescued girls who regret coming back home.