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Africa News of Friday, 30 April 2021

Source: nairametrics.com

Chad: What a crisis means for Nigeria

Chadian citizens Chadian citizens

On the 27th of April 2021, protests erupted in the capital city of N’Djamena as thousands of young Chadians banged pots and burnt French flags around the city, in protest of the military takeover and the French government’s support for it. Opposition members themed the protests “Wakit Tama” or “The hour has come” as police launched tear gas to disperse the crowd of angry protesters.

The protests are part of a larger series of events that could lead to even more chaos in the West African Sahel region, which is deeply troubled by rising insurgency along the Sahel belt.

Earlier this month, President Idriss Deby of Chad died of injuries suffered on the frontlines when some terrorists attacked the army. The President had visited the frontlines to share his election victory with the soldiers before the unfortunate incident.

The Chadian military also announced that day that the son of Chad’s slain president Idriss Deby Itno will replace him as the head of the military council, circumventing the Chadian constitutional process which would have made the speaker of the House the interim leader.

However, the military takeover has received foreign support so far and this has contributed to the anger from local Chadians as the French Government, in particular, disclosed its support for the military takeover after late President Deby’s son, Mahamat Deby Itno assumed power.

French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said: “There are exceptional circumstances… Logically, it should be Mr Kabadi…but he refused because of the exceptional security reasons that were needed to ensure the stability of this country.”

How does a crisis in Chad affect Nigeria?

The Chadian Government of late President Deby had been in a longstanding battle with rebels trying to take over control in the south. The Government had also been a key ally of Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram and the Sahelian insurgency which has been a growing problem in the past few years.

SBM Intelligence, Nigerian Socioeconomic and Research firm, stated in its report titled Idriss Déby: The ring of instability closes that geographically, Chad is at the heart of a number of conflicts in West and Central Africa. “To its west, Déby had been a key ally for Nigeria in its fight against Boko Haram. The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) operation which was supposed to include cooperation with Niger, Cameroon and Chad, ended up being a largely Nigerian operation with input from only the Chadian army.”

To its north, it acted as an effective buffer against Libya with whom Chad has fought several conflicts, Darfur in Sudan which directly impacted his ethnic Zaghawa people and the sectarian crisis that has pitched in the Central African Republic.

This, in part, is what made him a favoured clearinghouse on a regional security strategy for foreign power interests, particularly France and the U.S. It was also at the heart of his personality cult at home, becoming a centrifugal political and socio-economic force that was unmatched by any other Chadian political figure,” the report states.

The report also added that Late President Deby dislodged Boko Haram jihadists from Chad, after personally leading an offensive in early 2020 which killed about a thousand of the insurgents, and declared an end to Chadian involvement in the MNJTF, limiting Chadian forces within the country’s borders, with the bulk of the fighting in Lake Chad done by the Nigerian military.