Sunday Southerner  -JUSTICIA on The Southerner Newspaper
Sunday, December 14, 2025

A bogey is emerging out of the Sahel and what is left of West Africa. The bogey clad in French military fatigues is marching up and down as the new face of Pan Africanism, and pretending to have thrown away the French neo-colonial yoke that had relegated them to absolute dependency and servitude.

And in most of Africa, people are fed on the dish of artificial intelligence, generously spewed out on social media, and the juntas are being celebrated as the new Thomas Sankara mantra.

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After overthrowing their ineffectictive and French depedent politicians last year they quickly suspended elections, parked the politicians to prisons and took the bold steps of casting off the French yoke and giving the boots to Western military bases, taking control of their gold, raw earth minerals, and nuclear mines, and most importantly, taking the bolder step of creating a confederation- Alliance of Sahelian States with a French acronym of AES. The juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger caught my attention and many decerning minds.

Not so much because of the demonization of the politicians to earn legitimacy, to escape the wrath of ECOWAS, which promised and failed to throw them out by force if necessary, and their romance with Russian mercenaries, but the apparent fact that the democracy project in Africa had been struck a mortal blow.

ECOWAS, founded in 1976, united West African countries and laid the foundation for a united Africa as one country, but faced the prospect of total eclipse. I thought it was an overreaction, a family dispute that could easily be resolved, but the French wanted it that way. A divided West Africa can only be in the French interest.

France had sabotaged the introduction of the West African currency, the ECO, by dividing West Africa along colonial cleavages and insisting on the colonial CFA, minted in France and managed by the French Central Bank. France had been the main albatross stultifying unity in West Africa. Historically, France has been Nigeria’s main enemy in the Western World.

It is on record that France supported Biafra during the civil war to weaken Nigeria, its main obstacle to perpetuating neocolonialism in its former colonies. Using its surrogates like Houphuet Boigny of the Ivory Coast and Omar Bongo of Gabon, France prolonged the Nigerian Civil War by supplying arms, mercenaries, and diplomatic support to Biafra, thus prolonging the war.

Those who closely follow the French colonial policy of assimilation, which was designed to turn their colonial subjects into artificial French men and women. They appropriated everything, both on the land and the sky, including the air they breathe, which was said to be a shade different from the British brand of predatory colonialism, that created a vast gulf between former subjects of the two colonial realms.

Now that the neo-colonies are gradually becoming free, it appears ironic that Nigeria would be hobnobbing with France. This scenario thus raises the issue of a friend of an enemy becoming an enemy.

Nigeria can argue that it is in the country’s interest to maintain trade and economic relations with France, but to accept Nigeria as a brother state, the AES would have to be convinced that Nigeria would not plot with France and Western powers to threaten their stranglehold on power.

Nigeria’s involvement, correctly in my opinion, in crushing the coup attempt in Benin Republic last week and the subsequent detention of a Nigeria Airforce C130 plane and the detention of Airforce men in the air craft and the belligerent language of the AES juntas, describing the act as unfriendly, reflects the mind set of the the junta leaders and their distrust of Nigeria.

As long as Nigeria continues to maintain normal relations with France, this attitude will continue and raises the question of how Nigeria will deal with its Sahel neighbours, who are ont the frontline in the war against terrorism and banditry.

In this context, Nigeria must do three things: rebuild its military capability to exert its power in the West African domain, rebuild the economy to make the country self-sufficient in many respects, and consolidate democracy at home and in ECOWAS. If Nigeria must dine with the devil, we must find the longest of spoons. Our neighbours have tasted the bitter pill of the French colonial policy of assimilation. They will never trust us as long as France refuses to let go of its former colonies.

These juntas are afraid of democracy as dictated by France, ECOWAS, and the West. They’re afraid of their people holding them accountable for their actions. They are afraid of the judgment of history and end up becoming more of the same, or worse, than the system they want to change.

As much as I hate military rule and I am not going to be persuaded otherwise, I admire the bold moves by the three juntas when they sacked the French and announced the creation of the AES.

In a Facebook post, I challenged them to convince me of their good intentions by doing the following: setting up a committee to draft a constitution uniting the three countries into one, with one currency, one flag, one military, and one government. Put the plan to a referendum, and if approved, set a date for elections to parliament and the presidency.

The junta leaders should be free to contest by shedding their uniforms. All these they could do within three years. I believe they could return to ECOWAS stronger. I think this could trigger more than a ripple effect in the nationalists project in West Africa and Africa.

I thought Benin Republic, which is heavily dependent on Nigeria and shares ethnic affinities in the North and South, could unite with Nigeria; Togo merging with Ghana; Sierra Leone and Liberia- the Mano River states- uniting as one country; the two Guineas uniting as one, the Senegambia reactivated; and Côte d’Ivoire standing alone.

These restructurings, properly conceived and executed with sincerity, would have aroused Kwame Nkrumah, Moddibo Keita, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Amilcar Cabral, Sylvanus Olympio, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and other leaders of Pan-Africanism from their graves. Even Houphuet Boigny and Leopold Sedar Senghor would have, albeit reluctantly, offered their nods of approval.

The Malian strongman Assimi Goïta has cancelled planned elections and promoted himself to the rank of full General. The junta Leader in Niger, Abdourahamane Tchiani, has cancelled elections, announced a five-year transition programme, and promoted himself to the rank of full General.

He has adopted Hausa as the nation’s lingua franca. He would not be speaking Hausa to his people alone; he knows that over 100 million people in Nigeria and millions more in Ghana, Benin, Chad, and Cameroon are also listening to his broadcasts.

Many of his listeners may well be armed with AK-47s already, and millions more would be willing to join their ranks. The most popular of the troika however is Captain Ibrahim Traore, who fancies himself the heir to the throne of Thomas Sankara. He has not announced a transition programme, and reports pouring in from the land of upright men during the recent Civil Society Week in Accra two weeks ago claimed he has already filled their prisons with journalists, politicians, and civil society leaders.

This state of affairs betrays instability, weak leadership, and unsustainable prospects. France, and then the United States, would continue to hover, looking for the right opportunity to infiltrate their ranks and throw them out.

The failure of Russia to sustain the Assad regime in Syria should be a lesson to the junta that President Vladimir Putin is not a viable and dependable partner. Like the US, France, and China, they are interested in gold, uranium, and other rare-earth minerals.

Very soon, the junta will realise that the real enemy is not Nigeria or ECOWAS. The enemy is within and beyond the Sahel. The best option for them is not to postpone the grim prospect that awaits them. They should restore the power of the people to choose their leaders, return to their ECOWAS family, and plan together to defeat the terrorists and move forward together to secure the Sahel, restore peace in West Africa, and develop their vast natural resources in the interest of their peoples.