Military intervention in the governance of any country is no doubt an unconstitutional take over of power of government by a group of people in contradiction to the laid down constitutional process of acquiring power. In Nigeria, for instance, the Constitution in Section 1(2) states that “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any persons or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.” This illegal change of government is not restricted to military coups. It extends to every manipulation of election, through rigging of elections or forceful perversion of the electoral process to declare a winner, other than the one voluntarily voted into power, by the sovereign will of the people. What happened in Niger Republic is clearly an unconstitutional takeover of power and a military coup that overthrew the elected government of President Mohammed Bazoum.
Unfortunately, I know, as a student of international law, that every revolution begets its own legality. Whenever a group of persons forcefully take over a country and manage to entrench themselves in power, either by the popular support of the people, or by sheer force, they become legitimate even if just in a de facto sense. It is in this sense that all the successful military coups to date in Nigeria became accepted as legitimate governments in Nigeria and even our courts became compelled to accept that decrees were superior to the Constitution. In a military dictatorship, the Constitution becomes an inferior law to the decrees of the rulers, which are usually mere orders of the Head of the Military Junta, reduced to writings. The military suspends the provision in the Constitution that forbids unconstitutional takeover of power and assumes the power themselves. No doubt, military takeover is outdated and can no longer be encouraged in our modern society. Indeed, African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has since outlawed this method of usurping governmental powers in Africa and in the West Africa.
Unfortunately, ECOWAS speedily and ill-advisedly made the current leader of Nigeria their Chairman despite his total lack of experience in foreign relations and obvious legitimacy problems he is facing at home as a result of the questionable electoral process that brought him to power. A man who has the notoriety of knowing how to talk before he thinks. As usual with such leaders with legitimacy questions around their leadership, they always react irrationally to anything that might give entities within their nation the audacity to change them the same way. They also want to buy the favour of an international community who are tired of military interventions, and in pursuit of acceptance by such leaders, especially the ones that have inordinate love for power, they are willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to secure their own seat. It is in light of this that the declaration by the government in Nigeria that every necessary means, including the use of force, should be used to oust the junta, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, from power in Niger Republic is totally misconceived. To achieve this aim, the junta was given a seven-day ultimatum to vacate office and restore the regime of President Bazoum.
Firstly, it was wrong to give a 7-day ultimatum or any ultimatum at all to a foreign power to obey your commands without first of all exploring all the diplomatic options available. I recalled the story of General Oladipo Diya, the Chief of General Staff to General Sani Abacha, the then Head of State. During the early days of the cancellation of June 12 and the usurpation of the position of the presidency by General Abacha, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) issued an ultimatum to Abacha to relinquish power or face the consequences. Oladipo Diya pleaded with them privately to remove the ultimatum because if the ultimatum passes and nothing happens as he knew nothing would happen, Abacha will realise that they were mere toothless bulldogs that could only bark but couldn’t bite. Diya was using the NADECO people as subtle blackmail on Abacha to checkmate Abacha’s dictatorial tendencies. He knew that if that ultimatum issued by NADECO passed without any threatening action taken by them to shake the country, that this will make all of them lose face in front of Abacha and embolden him to be an unrestrained dictator. This was eventually what happened. The date came and passed with no incident and Abacha became uncontrollable. Some NADECO officials were killed, some detained, some went into self exile, assassination attempts were carried out on some. Even Diya himself was set up in a coup which nearly resulted in his execution but for the sudden death of Abacha himself. So issuing ultimatum to use force within seven days to overthrow a whole country and a regime of a foreign country is an outburst not well thought out because if after the expiration of the ultimatum and nothing happens, the military junta will simply be emboldened to consolidate his power the more, and the ECOWAS Community and its Chairman will simply lose face and consequently become inconsequential in the ensuing drama of power succession in Niger Republic.
A wise leader would have been more circumspect. There has been about seven military coups in West Africa within the last three years. There was none in which the Chairman of ECOWAS then ever advocated the immediate use of force against the country. The first consideration before a leader chooses the option to take in combacting the unconstitutional takeover of power in any country is the popular opinion of the people in that country. Are the people in support of the coup or not. As reprehensible as coup d’etat is, it’s not the duty of an outside power to compel a people to accept a leader where the citizens of a country do not want the leader anymore. President Biden refused to draft American military to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan when they started attacking the Afghan army because he refused to send American military to go and die where the Afghan army were unwilling to fight for their own country. America pulled out and allowed the unelected Taliban warriors to take over Afghanistan rather than blindly supporting the democratically elected, and American supported corrupt Afghan government. The reason is that if the people support the military takeover, they are most likely going to see any intervening outside power as an occupier force rather than a liberator. The vibes coming out from Niger does not indicate that the people are outrageously against the military takeover in their country and any attempt by Nigeria or ECOWAS to forcefully change their government for them may boomerang. Military coups most times are caused by bad governance which results in poverty, rigged election or sit tight leaders and failure of justice which leads to frustration of the people and leave them with no option than to support military coup. Certainly, those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.
On the international scene, the Chairman of ECOWAS must determine how concrete and united the international community is in using force to overthrow another foreign regime. The only Organisation that can legitimately authorise the use of force against a country on international scale is the United Nations. This authorization requires at least the concurring votes of nine out of 15 members of the United Nations Security Council without any dissenting vote of any five permanent members of the Council which include United States, Britain, France, China and Russia. It is not likely that Russia will sign on speedily on this method because of the interest of the Wagner group in sustaining the authority of the ruling military junta. It may be important to note that most of the neighbouring countries of Niger Republic in the sahel region like Mali and Burkina Faso, are under the control of military regimes and have already thrown their weight behind the regime and Guinea has also fallen in line to support Niger leader. France and America had their forces in Niger yet refused to avert the coup for reasons the ECOWAS Chairman ought to have fully investigated before contemplating that ill-advised ultimatum issued against the military junta in Niger. Any attempt to drag Nigeria into such conflict without extricating this web of international complications will result in unmitigated disaster.
The most important consideration before plunging your country into international conflict is the situation of your economy at home and the readiness of your troops to set sail for international conflict. Nigeria’s economy today is in its worst condition since the creation of Nigeria with more than N80 trillion in debts without any major industrial productive base. Let us be clear, very rich, powerful countries have been bankrupted in the past due to their ill-advised dabbling into unnecessary wars. America was flourishing in wealth until they rightly warred against Afghanistan but wrongly fought against Iraq. The two wars drained their economy to the point of collapse during George Bush Jnr regime leading to the collapse of banks which had to be bailed out by the government to enable the economy survive. America today is owing trillions of dollars as a result of those wars. Russia is gradually becoming distressed in their economy due to their unthoughtful war against Ukraine. In Nigeria, we have intractable security problems that have stretched our security agencies to fatigue and we cannot stretch them further into international conflict. It may be pertinent for the Chairman of ECOWAS to realise that the last time Nigeria assembled West African Countries in ECOMOG to restore peace in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the other countries withdrew almost immediately hostilities commenced and did not make any financial contribution to the cause. Nigeria cannot foot the bill for any international conflict and the leader of ECOWAS should concentrate on managing the country’s economy and re-equiping the Nigeria military to meet up with internal security challenges while forging international coalition towards a peaceful resolution of the Niger crisis through dialogue and diplomacy. ECOWAS must not insist on restoring President Bazoum, they should rather insist on restoring democracy in the beleaguered country. Every country enjoys democracy with accountable and responsible leaders but loathes dishonest and incompetent leaders even if they exist within a purported democracy.