'Niger Republic war drums' - Nigeria disappoints, returns to big-for-nothing status

Before Nigeria cut off electricity supply to the Niger Republic, how many past Nigerian Presidents and Heads of Government, say Gens Olusegun Obasanjo or Ibrahim Babangida did President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ask for advice? Did he even contact

Prof Bola Akinyemi who played a key role in energizing Nigerian diplomacy in the mid-‘1970s and 1980s? That was the golden era of Nigerian diplomacy.

Oh, how far things have changed for the worse in Nigerian diplomacy. From the inception of the Murtala Muhammed administration till when Ibrahim Babangida annulled the 1983 free and fair election, Nigeria had a remarkable foreign policy. Now, there is an unmistakable disconnect between President Tinubu and the rest of the country over the Nigerien coup. To excuse this disconnect, Tinubu makes it appear that he is following whatever ECOWAS decides. That is an abomination for Nigeria is supposed to provide the lead for ECOWAS, to guide its footsteps, help foot its bills, and help the majority Francophone countries in it to see things through the African eyes, instead of doing the bidding of France.

This is because since the mid’70s and all through the 1980s and through the Olusegun Obasanjo and the Umaru Yar’Adua presidency civilian administrations, Nigeria was fiercely independent as it strove to be the veritable African Big Brother. David Lamb, Los Angeles Times former African Bureau Chief, in his 1983 book, “The Africans”, tagged Nigeria “Africa’s first global mini-power”.

So, Tinubu would be insulting Nigerians if he continues to insist on solving the Nigerien crisis the ECOWAS way. ECOWAS should solve it the Nigerian way. Nigeria stood against the Western world during the accursed apartheid days in Southern Africa, and insisted on true independence in Angola to Zimbabwe and South Africa – and won. And it is exasperating that the status quo Nigeria wants Niger Republic to return to is the one where France and the US have military out-posts in Niger…with their soldiers actually in that country, Nigeria’s North-westerly neighbour. That is not in Nigeria’s interest. It is Nigeria’s duty to wean Franco-phone countries away from their nasty dependence on France, for until that is done, there can never be a real ECOWAS and the ECOWAS common currency, the Eco, will never take off.

For instance, France is in control of Niger Republic’s Uranium industry, and Uranium is one of the world’s most important and one of the scarcest minerals. France 24, French TV outlet to the world aired a special report; “Does the coup in Niger threaten nuclear power plants in France?”
Part of the report ran thus: “The coup in Niger has prompted concerns the West African country could curtail uranium exports, possibly hamstringing nuclear power production in France and beyond. But so far, source diversification and well-stocked inventories should be able to mitigate any disruptions in the short term, experts say.

France derives about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, more than any other country. France is also the world’s

largest net exporter of nuclear energy, bringing in more than €3billion per year.

Niger has maintained a market share of between 4 and 6 percent of the global uranium trade for the last decade, according to the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). But despite its modest share of the market, Niger supplied France with around 18 percent of its uranium between 2005 and 2020″.
Even the EU’s nuclear agency Euratom – which gets one-quarter of its uranium from Niger – has also said it is not worried about the coup affecting nuclear power production.

“If imports from Niger are being cut, there are no immediate risks to the security of nuclear power production in the short term,” Euratom told Reuters. The European Commission said the 27-nation bloc had “sufficient inventories of uranium to mitigate any short-term supply risks”.

Actually, Niger contributes 5% of the global supply of Uranium, so the mineral may not be as strategic to the world as many Africans may wish to think. Yet, what is important is that as France has been using uranium-fueled nuclear power stations to supply electricity to many European countries, while Niger has no Uranium-powered electricity station, it is in Nigeria’s and Africa’s interest to ensure that Nigeria develops a nuclear plant that could depend on Niger’s Uranium.

This is especially as the France 24 report added that “The possible suspension of uranium supplies to France also raises questions about whether Niger could effectively replace French demand without seeing a sharp economic decline itself – 33 percent of Nigerien exports go to France, almost all of which are radioactive fuel”.

Now, as Nigeria switched off electricity supply to Niger, it also switched off any meaningful Big Brotherly role for Nigeria in this and future issues. This is sad because Nigeria needs Niger Republic to realize the huge dreams of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Nigeria’s Zik of Africa – a close-knit Africa which they preached even before the EU came into being. A nuclear power station there could solve Africa’s electricity crisis.

Tinubu’s role in this crisis is taking Nigeria back to when it was a big-for-nothing country, bereft of initiatives and bold continental dreams. And I mourn this fall for as Edmund Burke said, “Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together”.