Daily, we write how the world is breaking into China-led and US-led systems. Unfortunately, we do forget that, as these two superpowers play their games, African countries are being dragged along. Kenya has been anointed as a pseudo-NATO country for Africa, while Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, seem now to be under the control of Russia and China.
Magically, ECOWAS has lost those three countries: “In a landmark moment for the Sahel region, the military rulers of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are set to hold their first joint summit since their respective coups, indicating the trio’s determination to forge ahead with their alliance. This summit, a significant step for the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), will take place in Niamey, Niger, on Saturday, July 6, 2024.”
Watch out: AES will apply to join BRICs as a bloc. The question now is what will happen in the West when Donald Trump takes over in January 2025. Depending on what he does (possibly cut-off and focus on the US), AES may start admitting members across Africa, if suddenly there is a great aid package available from China/Russia. If the West cannot match those goodies, everyone could become a member of the Alliance of Sahel States.
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You must respect these 3 LANDLOCKED countries for the bravado they have demonstrated, putting ECOWAS on defense, and making it largely inconsequential. Yet, I think it is a mistake because this no-ECOWAS governing purity is not a sustainable strategy!
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger set to hold their first joint summit under Alliance of Sahel States (AES)
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Tinubu mismanaged the Niger issue, that was his first major foreign policy gaffe. He sort of convinced himself that he was instructing his Lagos boys, until he realized that he was dealing with men, but it was already late anyway. Some people on this LinkedIn supported invading Niger and restoring ‘democracy’, too many lunatics in the land. This is how they have been ruining Nigeria anyway, and they keep defending their wanton misjudgement and incompetence.
It is not that any of those three countries matter so much anyway, but at least they are proving that they can stand with their two feet and do what they believe in, something Nigeria and Nigerians have proven incapable of anyway. ECOWAS only exists on paper, it has zero leadership, because Nigeria is incapable of leading anyone. Nigeria has neither political nor moral authority to tell anyone else what to do, nobody needs to learn or take instructions from Nigeria.
Where will our gas pipeline to Algeria cum Europe now pass through, since Niger is showing that it doesn’t send us? Buhari even constructed railway into their territory, yet we are nobody in the things that count anyway.
Nigeria brings shame and disrespect, and Nigerians are shameless. You guys never learn.