The prospect of a military invasion of Niger by Ecowas looms large. The presidents of countries that make up Ecowas have given the military junta that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger an ultimatum to leave power or face “military intervention.”

All of a sudden, a backwater nation has seized global headlines. Niger got independence from France in 1960. A country of 24 million people, it is the poorest in the world, despite being the seventh-largest producer of uranium globally.

It also produces gold, coal, silver, tin, salt and limestone. Bazoum’s election two years ago was the first peaceful transfer of power since independence.

West Africa has some of the poorest countries in the world despite having some of the world’s most valuable minerals. It is also the region worst hit by perennial instability.

Similar coups took place in Burkina Faso and Mali in 2022 and 2020 respectively. There is a huge undercurrent afoot in West Africa.

Ecowas wants to intervene militarily. Ecowas, do not shed the blood of fellow Africans in Niger. Further, it will not be walk in the park. Thousands of Niger youths are signing up to go to the battlefront in case Ecowas attacks.

Worse, Burkina Faso and Mali have declared they will come to Niger’s rescue should Ecowas attack. The subsequent conflagration will make Libya look like child’s play.

Instead, Ecowas should bring all parties to the table, and moderate dialogue and guarantee the outcome. Ecowas, you failed to reverse the coups in Burkina Faso and Mali. Your justification for intervention in

Niger is, consequently, very weak. Worse, you are being seen as intervening on behalf of a declining colonial power, France, that is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep its dominion over its increasingly assertive former colonies.

The coups seen so far are just but the beginning. West Africa, and subsequently the rest of Africa, is a powder keg of people who are no longer willing to accept the status quo. The system is stressed out, and it is beginning to give.

The coup in Niger has brought a moment of truth for that country, West Africa, Africa, and the neocolonialist West.

Africa needs disruption from the post-colonial independent state that has been a disaster for the people of the continent. The continent’s elites simply captured the newly independent states, set themselves up as gatekeepers of the West, and continued plunder of Africa’s resources, rewarding themselves handsomely by acting as surrogates for this plunder.

Six decades after independence, the general African population is no longer willing to accept what they now understand clearly is an imposed poverty wrought by the combined forces of local elites and former colonialists.

Niger now has an opportunity to recalibrate the state without bloodshed. It should forge a new direction that creates a new economic system that works for the people. Both Ecowas and the coup leaders must see through all the ongoing hysteria and seize this chance.

All the issues that have underlined the coups in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are festering across the entire West Africa. No wonder Ecowas presidents are in a panic. But it is too late to forestall the coming storm!
It is time for the African Union (AU) to begin a new conversation in Africa. Under the auspices of the AU, African elites must accept that 60 years of the postcolonial African state have failed. It has been a wasted period for the continent.

The AU must lead the discussion into a new dispensation in the continent. And build consensus about what can be done about it.

This conversation must accept that the current economic system built on neocolonial wiring of former colonies to the centre, read the West, has been a disaster for Africa, and will never ever lead the continent out of poverty.

Worse, it will keep Africa in perpetual instability. The people of Africa can empower themselves economically and lead dignified lives even as they provide critical raw materials to the West, China, and Russia. But the greed by all must come to an end.