The calm that has returned to the streets of Niamey should not deceive anyone.
The battle is over, but the political war is only just beginning.
During the night of 28 to 29 August, Nigerian soldiers attempted to overthrow the regime of General Abdourahamane Tiani. The attack, launched in particular by troops from units deployed on the country’s various fronts, targeted strategic installations in the capital, notably Air Base 101 and areas close to the presidential palace.
For several hours, power hung in the balance.
To save it, Tiani had to call on his Russian allies.
The men of Africa Corps, heirs to the Wagner system in Africa, intervened alongside loyalist Nigerian forces. They took part in recapturing the air base and neutralising the mutinous soldiers. The Nigerian army regained control of the base with the support of Russian paramilitary forces.
Here is the major political fact of this crisis: Nigerian soldiers were fought on Nigerian territory with the direct support of Russian forces that had come to protect the regime that emerged from the 2023 coup.
Yet the junta had made national sovereignty its main argument for driving out French and American forces.
Sovereignty with variable geometry
For years, Tiani and his supporters told Nigerians that the French military presence was a humiliation and an affront to national sovereignty.
The French soldiers left.
The Americans were asked to leave the country.
Western military agreements were denounced.
The regime’s propaganda could then proclaim that Niger had finally regained its full independence.
But an embarrassing question now arises: what is the point of driving out the French military if, a few years later, the authorities have to call on Russian soldiers to save their presidential seat?
The question is all the more explosive because the Russians did not intervene to defend Nigerian territory against jihadist groups. They intervened to help the authorities repel Nigerian soldiers who threatened the regime.
The symbolism is devastating.
Nigerien soldiers have been dying for years in the Sahel’s war zones. They fight Islamic State and JNIM, suffer heavy losses and regularly denounce their combat conditions. The Niamey mutiny appears to have been fuelled precisely by this pent-up frustration among units facing jihadist violence on a daily basis.
And when these same soldiers finally turn against the authorities, it is the Russians who come to fight them.
What sovereignty remains when the national authorities can no longer ensure their own survival without foreign protection?
The fracture between Tiani and his army
The mutiny of 29 August is probably the most serious warning sign Tiani has received since coming to power.
The problem is not just that soldiers tried to overthrow him.
The problem is that they were able to do so even though Niger officially has a considerable security apparatus.
Above all, the unrest seems to have found fertile ground within the ranks of the regular army itself.
Soldiers deployed on the front lines are the ones paying the highest price in this war. They see their comrades fall. They face material hardships. They see jihadist attacks continuing despite the junta’s promises.
Since 2023, Tiani has promised to restore security and give Niger back its dignity.
Three years later, jihadist violence remains a major threat, and Nigerian forces continue to suffer significant losses.
It is in this context that part of the army seems now to be wondering whether the regime has not drifted away from those who are actually fighting on the ground.
And the Russian intervention may have turned that frustration into hatred.
Because the Nigerian soldier can accept dying to defend his country. He can accept hardship and sacrifice in the name of the nation.
But it will be much harder for him to accept that foreigners come and fire on him to protect a political regime.
Tiani: from Bazoum’s overthrower to Moscow’s protégé
The historical paradox is dizzying.
In July 2023, Tiani seized power claiming he wanted to save Niger from a political system incapable of guaranteeing the security of its citizens.
He overthrew Mohamed Bazoum, a democratically elected president, claiming to put an end to the failure of civilian rule.
Today, three years later, it is his own power that needs foreign fighters to withstand a military revolt.
The trajectory is hard to ignore.
Tiani came to power through a coup.
He now stays in power thanks to a security apparatus of which a vital component is Russian.
In other words, the man who claimed to free Niger from foreign tutelage seems to have swapped one Western dependency for a Russian one.
It is precisely this contradiction that could become the regime’s Achilles heel.
What if Bazoum had accepted French aid?
We also need to go back to July 2023.
When Tiani overthrew Mohamed Bazoum, France still had more than a thousand soldiers in Niger. Paris supported the elected president and was considering, under certain circumstances, an operation to help secure his release.
Close associates of Bazoum had requested French intervention. An operation was reportedly considered at the time, but Bazoum ultimately preferred dialogue and refused to let the French military intervene directly.
That decision now belongs to history.
But one question remains: if Bazoum had accepted French intervention, would Tiani have succeeded in his coup?
No one can rewrite history with certainty.
But it is perfectly legitimate to note that Tiani benefited from that hesitation. The elected president remained a prisoner in the presidential palace while the junta gradually consolidated its control over the state apparatus.
The most ironic thing is that today, the man who denounced the French presence in Niger is calling on a foreign power to save his own regime.
Algeria enters the game
As if the Russian presence were not enough, Algeria has just taken a new step.
After the failed attempt to overthrow Tiani, Algiers deployed military assets to Niamey, including combat and transport aircraft. This decision represents a significant shift in Algerian doctrine, which has long been marked by reluctance to commit its forces beyond its borders.
Algeria ultimately did not have to do battle with the mutineers: they had already been repelled with the help of Russian forces.
But the message was clear.
Tiani would no longer be alone.
Moscow is militarily protecting the regime. Algiers is now lending it strategic support. And the junta can present this encirclement as proof that Niger has new allies.
But behind this show of strength lies a troubling question: how many foreign powers will it take to protect a government that seems to be gradually losing the support of part of its own army?
The volcano beneath the barracks
The mutiny of 29 August may not, therefore, be an isolated incident.
It could be the first symptom of a much deeper rupture.
Russian weapons allowed Tiani to win a battle.
They did not resolve the frustrations of Nigerian soldiers.
They did not destroy the jihadist groups.
They did not bring back the soldiers who died at the front.
They did not reconcile the troops with the authorities.
They simply allowed the regime to survive an initial attempt to overthrow it.
And therein lies the danger for Tiani.
For a regime can control a palace with the help of foreign forces. It can retake a military base. It can arrest mutineers.
But it cannot indefinitely govern against an army that is beginning to see its own government as dependent on a foreign power.
General Tiani should therefore look beyond the walls of his palace.
The real danger to his regime may lie neither in Paris, nor in Washington, nor even in the Western capitals he regularly accuses of plotting against him.
It may lie in the Nigerian barracks.
And if the soldiers who saw their comrades fall under the bullets of foreign forces one day decide to settle scores with those they accuse of having handed their country to Moscow, the next mutiny could be far harder to contain.
The Russians can protect Tiani.
Algeria can support him.
But no foreign power can forever replace the loyalty of a national army.
Tiani’s regime may have won the battle of 29 August. But it may have lost something far more precious: the trust of some of those who wear the Nigerian uniform.
