The West loses weight in the Sahel and Russia consolidates positions in the African desert. On Sunday, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, three countries ruled by military regimes after suffering coups in recent years, announced the withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (CEDAO), the economic bloc and most important political body in the region, created in 1975 and made up of 15 West African nations. The seriousness of the rupture – never in almost half a century of the organization’s existence had there been a divorce of such magnitude – not only has implications for monetary policy or the circulation of goods and citizens, it is also the confirmation of a shaken: the gap between the Sahel and the West is widening by leaps and bounds. From Moscow they rub their hands.
The statement, signed by the respective Heads of State, Burkinabe Captain Ibrahim Traoré, Malian Colonel Assimi Goita and Nigerien General Abdourahamane Tiani, leaves no doubt of the grudge against the West and its allies. The three leaders say that they have noticed “with great sadness, bitterness and disappointment” how the organization has moved away from the ideals of pan-Africanism. “ECOWAS, under the influence of foreign powers and betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its member states and their populations, whose well-being it must guarantee”.
After the military coups, the three countries had been provisionally suspended from ECOWAS and punished with “illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible” economic sanctions, according to the statement.
For Cheta Nwanze, an analyst at the Nigerian think tank SBM, what has happened is another step in the progressive loss of Western power in the region. “The withdrawal seems to be another example in the decline of the influence of the two traditional superpowers in West Africa: France and Nigeria”.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who currently leads ECOWAS and heads the pro-Western sector with Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Ghana, last summer commanded the wing that encouraged the regional body to intervene militarily in Niger after the coup of State Rapid support for the coup plotters from Bamako and Ouagadougou sparked fears of a regional conflict, and the use of force was eventually ruled out.
Beyond the regional enmities, the change of powers in the Sahel is not a leap into the void; on the other side is Moscow. The decision of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso is a key move in the drift of the trio of Sahelian states towards positions close to Russia.
After expelling French soldiers from their territory, the three African governments have signed security agreements with Moscow, which provides them with training, military advice or war material directly or through the Russian mercenary company Wagner. And it’s not just security. In recent months, Russia has signed several economic agreements to exploit the enormous mineral reserves of these countries – Niger has one of the world’s largest uranium reserves – and to develop the energy sector.
The historic decision does not have a peripheral importance for Europe, it is a central affair. The Sahel is key for Spain and southern Europe, as several migration routes to Europe pass through its territory (the Niger migration route through Agadez has been reactivated in recent weeks) and the region has suffered in the last decade a spiral of uncontrollable jihadist violence, with the presence of groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaida in the African desert.
Precisely, in September the three Sahelian countries commanded by military regimes created an alternative body of mutual defense, the Alliance of the States of the Sahel, which represented a definitive blow to the G-5’s waterline in the Sahel, the framework of regional cooperation against jihadism that had operated in the area in recent years.
Russia is not an observer of what is happening in the Sahel; is an active part of it. Moscow has taken advantage and multiplied with propaganda tools the anti-French unrest of Malians, Burkinabes and Nigeriens that drinks from decades of a relationship seen as unfair and unequal by the local population.
Now it is necessary to see the impact of the abandonment of three mainstays of ECOWAS. Niagalé Bagayoko, PhD in Political Sciences and president of the African Security Network (ASSN), questioned this week in an analysis on RFI that the withdrawal of the African trio from ECOWAS is so easily accepted by the population, since if confirms the measure – officially a year must pass from the announcement to become official – the citizens of the three countries would not be able to freely cross the borders of the region as before. “Politically, I think public opinion will tend to support this decision to withdraw. On the other hand, when they see the economic consequences, or see individually how it affects their ability to move in an extremely integrated space, there could be a more important response. In my opinion, we are facing a deep and fundamental change from an institutional and geostrategic point of view”.
