Senegal President Basirou Diomaye Faye. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye, Africa’s youngest, is suddenly faced with a huge challenge of reuniting the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a weakened regional bloc that is older than him.

The 44-year-old Faye was tasked on July 7 with getting the military junta-ruled Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso back to ECOWAS at the bloc’s summit in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

The three nations left ECOWAS and formed an alliance after the military takeovers fractured their relations with West African neighbours.

As a peace envoy supported by Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, Mr. Faye is seen as possibly the best among heads of state for a mission to try to woo the three nations back to the fold of regional cooperation.

Beyond the appeal of security and economic collaboration, ECOWAS’s goodwill has waned in recent years, said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a research analyst with the West Africa-focused Centre for Democracy and Development. But the new role offers Mr. Faye an opportunity to possibly seek reforms for “a more sustainable and self-reliant” ECOWAS, Mr. Adekaiyaoja said.

Mr. Faye also represents the opposite of what the three military leaders claim they are against.

He had not been elected when ECOWAS, founded in 1975, imposed the severe sanctions on Niger following a coup last July. Niger cited the sanctions as one of the reasons for leaving the bloc. Also, Mr. Faye’s victory in an April election that was certified as credible stood in contrast to rigged polls in the region.

At home, Mr. Faye is reviewing the old ties that the junta leaders claim have stifled West Africa’s development, though Senegal remains a key ally for the West.

Under Mr. Faye’s leadership, Senegalese officials are renegotiating contracts with foreign operators in the country and, according to Finance Minister Abdourahmane Sarr, are “aiming to free ourselves from the ties of dependency in our public policies.”

It is exactly what the junta wants to hear, analysts say. Since ousting the democratic governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the generals have severed military and economic ties with Western partners such as the U.S. and France, saying they had not benefited their countries. The shift has opened the window for Russia to expand its footprint in the region.

“Like the other heads of state, he (Faye) claims sovereignty and a break with the old order,” said Seidik Abba, a Sahel specialist and president of the International Center for Reflection for Studies.

Age is an “asset” for Faye

Age is also not just a number in the case of Mr. Faye, a former tax inspector. Even as the youngest president in Africa, he is still older than three of the four current military leaders in the region.

At Sunday’s ECOWAS meeting in Nigeria, Mr. Faye was still among the youngest.

When he visited Nigeria in May, the Senegalese leader touted his age as an “asset” that can help open a window for dialogue with the neighbours.

Mr. Faye’s task to dialogue with the three countries would still not be easy, according to Mr. Abba, the Sahel specialist. He said the three have wider concerns about the operations of ECOWAS, which they say faces interference from foreign countries like France, their former colonial ruler.

There is also a question of how much freedom Mr. Faye and the Togolese president would have in their role as envoys under an ECOWAS that has just re-elected Nigerian President Bola Tinubu as its chairman.

Their success would depend on “how best the different leaders can coordinate and agree” on the issues, Mr. Adekaiyaoja said.

Nigeriens participate in a march called by supporters of coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niamey, Niger, on July 30, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

A China-backed pipeline that would make Niger an oil-exporting country is being threatened by an internal security crisis and a diplomatic dispute with neighbouring Benin, both as a result of last year’s coup that toppled the West African nation’s democratic government.

The 1,930-kilometer pipeline, which runs from Niger’s Chinese-built Agadem oil field to the port of Cotonou in Benin, was designed to help the oil-rich but landlocked Niger achieve an almost fivefold increase in oil production through a $400 million deal signed in April with China’s state-run national petroleum company.

However, it has been stalled by several challenges, including the diplomatic disagreement with Benin that led to the pipeline’s closure last week. There also has been an attack this week by the local Patriotic Liberation Front rebel group, which claimed to have disabled a part of the pipeline and is threatening more attacks if the $400 million deal with China isn’t cancelled.

The group, led by Salah Mahmoud, a former rebel leader, took up arms after Niger’s junta came to power, posing further security threats to the country, which is already struggling with a deadly security crisis.

Analysts say the crises could further hurt Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries which funds most of its budget with now-withheld external support in the aftermath of the coup.

Niger currently has a local refining capacity of only 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) for local demands while the pipeline is to export up to 90,000 barrels daily — a feat officials and analysts have said would help the country shore up its revenue and emerge from the coup sanctions that had isolated it from regional neighbours and hurt its economy and people.

“It is a completely messy situation and the only way for a resolution is if both administrations directly engage and resolve issues,” said Ryan Cummings, director of Africa-focused security consulting company Signal Risk.

One major concern is how the stalled pipeline operation might impact Niger’s overall economic growth. The World Bank had projected that the West African nation’s economy would rebound and grow the fastest in Africa this year at a rate of 6.9%, with oil exports as a key boost.

Diplomatic impasse

The diplomatic tensions with Benin date back to July when Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, was deposed in a coup, resulting in West African neighbours closing their borders with Niger, and in the formation of the so-called local liberation group now threatening more attacks on the oil project.

Benin, alongside other neighbours, has reopened its border with Niger, but Nigerien officials have refused to open theirs, accusing Benin of hosting French troops that pose a threat to the country after Niger severed military ties with France. That led Benin’s president, Patrice Talon, to make oil exportation through its port conditional on the reopening of the border.

Both countries are losing out economically, with Benin also being deprived of millions of dollars in transit fees. Observers say the impasse is increasing regional tensions since the coup, which came after a string of other military takeovers. It has pitched Niger against the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, which usually mediates on such issues.

With Niger tilting towards Russia in its diplomatic shift and Benin aligned with France and the West African bloc, China has tried to step in and resolve the impasse and benefit from its investment in the project. But even Beijing’s efforts, which resulted in the first lifting of oil from the Agadem field in May, collapsed as the diplomatic spat escalated further.

Benin this week convicted and imprisoned three of five Nigerien oil workers it recently arrested at the Beninise port after they crossed from the border and were accused of “use of falsified computer data.” Their arrests prompted Niger to shut the pipeline last week, with a senior government official alleging that their oil is being “stolen by other people.”

A big concern for Niger’s military government at this stage is “whether they have the requisite fiscal capacity to keep paying for public services” following the coup, which has made it unable to meet some of its financial obligations such as debt repayment and infrastructural funding, Mr. Cummings said. The junta in Niger “definitely have to be more cautious in handling the financial position of the country” amid the ongoing crises, he said.