Link to article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq9x94gj2no
Niger’s military leader Brig Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani has accused Nigeria of working with France to undermine their security by destabilizing their military agreements. Tchiani interveiwed on Christmas day saying, “Nigerian authorities are not unaware of this underhanded move.” However Nigeria has denied all accusations made. In response to the comments Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s security advisor, stated that the allegations were both baseless and false. Niger and Nigeria have had tensions since the 2023 when a military coup ousted the ex-president Mohamed Bazoum. Nigeria has also imposed economic sanctions on Niger through their West African Regional Bloc, which is lead by Nigeria’s preident. BBC has therefore said that this incident is only adding more stress to the preexisting tensions between the two countries.
What I believe can be gathered from all of this is how untrusting states are of eachother, even when in alliances with one another. Granted, Sub Saharan African States do have a lot more tension because of decolonization and Europe drawing their boundaries. However I beleive this proves the theory of realism to an extent. Realism is all about the world being in an anarchic state where each state acts in its own self interest to procure security. This in turn leads to much mistrust, since a state can never truly decipher another states intention. Niger is obviously acting with paranoia and fear, which I assume to be from its lack of trust of the state of Nigeria. However you could also look at this from the constructivist approach and say that Niger is distrustful towards Nigeria because of how they have known Nigeria to act in the past years. They have not had the best history so it could be safe to assume that the have constructed social identities towards each other.
A month ago Nigeria approved the removal of three states from the West African Bloc, one of which being Niger. They stated this is due to their refusal to reinstate democratic rule. This demonstrates that Liberalism is inapplicable to the modern world once again. In theory, if all states were democratic the world would be more peaceful. But the world has had such a rich and deep history in nondemocratic ways that the dream “democratic world” would be impossible to reach. Violence would be enhanced greatly in order to reach it. And holding onto the hope of cooperating with only democratic states makes the world less safe. Now Nigeria has three countries in Africa they have to worry about instead of being in an alliance with them, all since they do not have the same government regime as Nigeria.