The silence that has returned to the streets of Niamey should not deceive anyone.
The battle is over, but the political war has only just begun.
On the night of 28-29 August, a group of Nigerien 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, including the Air Base 101 and areas near the presidential palace.
For several hours, the regime tottered.
To save it, Tiani had to call on his Russian allies.
Members of the Africa Corps, successors to the Wagner Group in Africa, intervened alongside Nigerien loyalist forces. They took part in recapturing the air base and neutralising the mutinous soldiers. The Nigerien army regained control of the base with the support of the Russian paramilitary forces.
This crisis has thrown up a major political fact: Nigerien soldiers were fought on Nigerien soil with the direct support of Russian forces who had come to protect the regime born of the 2023 coup.
Yet the junta had made national sovereignty its main argument for expelling the French and American forces.
Sovereignty with variable geometry
For years, Tiani and his supporters told Nigeriens that the French military presence was an insult to national sovereignty.
The French soldiers left. The Americans were asked to leave. Western military agreements were torn up.
The regime’s propaganda could then proclaim that Niger had at last regained its full independence.
But an awkward question now arises: what was the point of chasing out the French military if, just a few years later, the regime has to call on Russian soldiers to save the presidential chair?
The question is all the more explosive because the Russians did not intervene to defend Nigerien territory against jihadist groups. They intervened to help the regime repel Nigerien soldiers who threatened it.
The symbolism is devastating.
For years, Nigerien soldiers have been dying in the conflict zones of the Sahel. They fight the Islamic State group and JNIM, suffer heavy losses and regularly denounce their combat conditions. The Niamey mutiny seems to have been fuelled precisely by this frustration accumulated in units confronted daily with jihadist violence.
And when these same soldiers end up turning against the regime, it is the Russians who come to fight them.
What sovereignty remains when the national regime can no longer ensure its own survival without foreign protection?
The split between Tiani and his army
The mutiny of 29 August is probably the most serious alarm bell that has been rung for Tiani since he came to power.
The problem is not only that soldiers tried to overthrow him. The problem is that they were able to do so when Niger officially has a considerable security apparatus.
Above all, the dissent appears to have found fertile ground within the ranks of the regular army itself.
The soldiers engaged on the various fronts are the ones who pay the heaviest price in the war. They see their comrades fall. They suffer material shortages. They see jihadist attacks continue despite the junta’s promises.
Since 2023, Tiani promised to restore security and return Niger’s dignity.
Three years on, jihadist violence remains a major threat and Nigerien forces continue to suffer significant losses. It is in this context that part of the army now seems to be asking itself whether the regime has not distanced itself from those who are actually fighting on the ground.
And the Russian intervention could have turned that frustration into hatred.
A Nigerien soldier can accept dying to defend his country. He can accept deprivation and sacrifice in the name of the fatherland.
But it will be far harder for him to accept foreigners coming to shoot at him to protect a political regime.
Tiani: from Bazoum’s overthrower to Moscow’s protégé
The historical irony is dizzying.
In July 2023, Tiani seized power claiming he wanted to save Niger from a political system incapable of guaranteeing the safety of its citizens. He overthrew Mohamed Bazoum, a democratically elected president, on the pretext of ending the failures of civilian rule.
Today, three years later, it is his own regime that needs foreign fighters to resist a military revolt.
The trajectory is impossible to ignore.
Tiani came to power through a coup. He now remains in power thanks to a security apparatus of which a key component is Russian.
In other words, the man who claimed to free Niger from foreign tutelage seems to have swapped Western dependence for Russian dependence.
It is precisely this contradiction that could become the regime’s Achilles heel.
And if Bazoum had accepted French help?
We also need to go back to July 2023.
When Tiani overthrew Mohamed Bazoum, France still had over a thousand soldiers in Niger. Paris supported the elected president and, in certain circumstances, was considering an operation to help secure his release.
Close associates of Bazoum had called for French intervention. According to reports at the time, an operation was considered, but Bazoum ultimately opted for dialogue and refused to let French troops intervene directly.
That decision now belongs to history.
But a 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 entirely 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 grip on the state apparatus.
The ultimate irony is that the man who once denounced the French presence in Niger is now calling on a foreign power to save his own rule.
Algeria enters the fray
As if the Russian presence were not enough, Algeria has just taken a new step.
After the attempt to overthrow Tiani, Algiers deployed military assets in Niamey, including combat and transport aircraft. This decision marks a significant shift in Algeria’s doctrine, which has long been reluctant to send its forces beyond its own borders.
Algeria ultimately did not have to do battle with the mutineers: they had already been driven back with the help of the Russian forces.
But the message was clear. Tiani would no longer be alone.
Moscow protects the regime militarily. Algiers now provides it with strategic support. And the junta can present this encirclement as proof that Niger has found new allies.
But behind this show of strength lies an unsettling question: how many foreign powers will it take to prop up a regime that appears to be gradually losing the support of parts of its own army?
The volcano beneath the barracks
The 29 August mutiny may not, therefore, be an isolated incident.
It could be the first symptom of a much deeper rupture.
The Russian weapons allowed Tiani to win a battle.
They have not eased the frustrations of Nigerien soldiers. They have not wiped out the jihadist groups. They have not brought back the soldiers who died at the front. They have not reconciled the troops with the regime. They have simply allowed the regime to survive a first coup attempt.
And that is precisely where the danger lies for Tiani.
A regime can control a palace with foreign help. It can retake a military base. It can arrest mutineers.
But it cannot indefinitely govern against an army that is starting to see the regime 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 could be in the Nigerien barracks.
And if the soldiers who saw their comrades fall under the bullets of foreign forces decide one day to settle scores with those they accuse of having handed their country to Moscow, the next mutiny could be far more difficult to contain.
The Russians can protect Tiani. Algeria can lend its support.
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 part of those who wear the Nigerien uniform.