Before July 2023, Niger and Europe had a fairly stable relationship with Niger viewing Europe and the European Union as a developmental partner. In fact for the West and the European Union, Niger was the last major security partner in the Sahel. However, this fairly stable relationship changed in July 2023 when a coup occurred and removed Western ally, Mohammed Bazoom from power. This change in government brought in General Tiani as the new head of state in Niger. However, the EU wasn’t happy with this change in governance which removed their ally from power and so in the name of democracy and constitutional order, the EU condemned the coup and placed economic sanctions on Niger to pressure the military junta to restore Bazoom. The military junta refused and more stringent sanctions were placed on Niger including cutting off developmental aid which constituted more than half of the National Budget. These sanctions placed on Niger by the EU have had serious effects on the Nigerien economy but it still hasn’t made the military junta step down. Instead, it has built more tensions between Niger and Europe. Recently, the Niger junta made a decision, a decision that has the potential to shake the whole of Europe and one which many see as retaliation against the sanctions placed by the EU. What is this decision and how would it shake Europe? Stay with us as we reveal it in this video.
Europe has for a long time viewed Africans migrating into the country as a security threat. For them, Africans coming into Europe could lead to the spread of terrorism and organized crime, as well as the spread of diseases. And so, for a long time, Europe has used both hard and soft power as a strategy to help reduce Africa-Europe Migration. One of the strategies used by Europe was the establishment of a law known as Law 2015-36, a legislation that was drafted in 2015 in coordination with the European Union and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. During this period Europe was faced with a migration crisis, whereby more than a million people entered the continent from Turkey and North Africa. According to the law, it was illegal for migrants to travel from Agadez towards Niger’s northern border. It also criminalized the work of the local “ferryman” who transported these migrants towards Libya and Algeria.
In Niger, Law 2015-36 was passed under the presidency of Mohammadou Issofou who was under pressure from the EU to reduce the number of migrants to Europe. To make the implementation of the law more appealing, the European Union established a five-billion-euro Trust Fund for Africa, and more than one billion euros went to Niger between 2014 and 2020. Since then, the number of African migrants has reduced drastically and the European Union has been happy. However, after the law went into effect following the country’s election in 2016, the ripple effects were felt across the region as a risky but relatively safer and voluntary migration route suddenly disappeared.
Agadez, Niger’s largest city in the north and a crossing point between Africa’s Sahel region and the Sahara has long been a transit city for migrants from West and Central Africa. Due to terrorist activity in the region, tourism collapsed but local businesses were able to flourish because of the inflow of legal migrants. Before the law was passed in 2015, cab drivers, restaurants, and accommodation for migrants were easy to find, while convoys of exiles that left Agadez every week for Libya or Algeria were escorted by military vehicles to deter possible attacks along the way. Immigration was a trade and source of income for several people in the region. A 2016 study revealed that as many as 333,000 people transited through Agadez, bringing in as much as $100 million, which helped stabilize the regional economy. However, after the law was enforced despite protests and rallies by Agadez smugglers, everything changed. Dozens of smugglers were imprisoned or fined between 3 and 30 million CFA francs. Shops, restaurants, and other operators in the hospitality business that depended on migration, had no one to cater to and so became deserted. In essence, people lost their source of income and unemployment soared in the region.
Speaking on the issue, Hannah Rae Armstrong, a former Sahel analyst for the International Crisis Group started that “It was an economic catastrophe for northern Niger at a time of extreme regional vulnerability, decimating a migrant transport industry that sustained much of the remote, neglected region and that was generally well-regulated for migrants to do the dangerous desert crossing, with security escorts and state-licensed drivers. While the European Union would say that they provided funds to mitigate the effect, the funds provided did not produce the desired result.
According to Mohamed Anacko, Agadez Regional Council President, part of the funds were supposedly used to set up retraining programs where people could choose a professional field to train in. However, it has been eight years since the program and only 300 people have benefited from it. The reason for this is that smugglers and transporters were excluded from the program as their previous activities were deemed “criminal” by the European Union. While the European Union might say that the law has been successful in keeping traffickers at bay and controlling migration, the effect of the law on African Migrants has been destructive because it has made the migrants take more dangerous routes. This means the anti-migration law prioritizes border protection over the protection of people on the move which is actually against human rights.
To avoid the authorities, smugglers had started taking routes further away from main roads, which are longer, more isolated, and therefore more dangerous. According to Anacko, Migration became risky, because it was no longer controlled, and people began to die in the desert without anyone knowing,” His statement has been confirmed by data published by the IOM in August, which revealed that no fewer than 570 migrants were reported deceased between January and June 2023 along the migratory routes in the Sahara Desert. Aside from these dangerous routes which have led to the disappearance of thousands of migrants, the anti-migration law has resulted in extrajudicial abuses. According to Nathaniel Powell, Africa Analyst at geopolitical advisory Oxford Analytica, “The Law turned Nigerien army and security forces against these migrants basically, and you see them being dumped in the desert”.
Now, over the years, experts and analysts have criticized the law as an overbearing influence of the West on Africa. Chris Ogunmodede, a foreign affairs analyst with years of experience working in African diplomatic circles, stated that the law was forced on the Nigerien government by the European Union when the migration to Europe started to get a level that the European Union considered to be unacceptably high,” Civil society organizations even pushed for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court to declare it illegal yet nothing was done until now.
In a televised statement, the government’s secretariat general revealed that the military junta of Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani signed an order revoking the anti-migration 2015 law. The new order also stipulates that convictions handed down under the 2015 law “shall be erased”. This announcement effectively ends an eight-year security partnership between the European Union and Niger and adds another layer to the increasingly constrained diplomatic standoff between the government and its Western partners since the former seized power in July. This new law by General Tiani has a lot of implications both for Niger and African migrants as well as the continent of Europe.
For the people of Niger, most especially those in the north, the new order is a welcome relief because the anti-migration law made an already-poor region even poorer. They see it as another process in weaning Niger from Western entanglements. Aside from the fact that the end of the anti-migration law would bring an array of sources of income for the people of northern Niger, it also means that African migrants are free to travel wherever they want. Souley Oumarou, the coordinator of the Forum for Responsible Citizenship (FCR) in Agadez, welcomed the end of the law as it hindered the rights of West Africans to move freely across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. He said that “These rights to emigrate, to travel, to go to any destination they please … have been restored through the repeal of this law, and for us, this is a good thing.”
Following the announcement by the junta, Agadez’s entire migration trade is set to be revived. According to some experts, “The first convoys will probably arrive as early as next week. We can expect a massive flow of migrants to Europe over the next few months,” For the European Union, which has a policy of outsourcing border controls to Mediterranean and African countries, Niger’s repeal of the anti-migration law represents yet another setback after Tunisia in October rejected funding it had offered the country to help curb illegal immigration. Niger’s repeal of the anti-migration law means that they should expect to see an influx of migrants into Europe, something that they have been able to reduce for the past eight years. This has the potential to bring about another migration crisis in Europe.
As Souley Oumarou stated the new order by the military junta of Niger is part of a reprisal against this EU’s decision with the aim of hurting Europe by allowing Africans to immigrate by sea to Europe. However, for the people of Niger and African migrants, the new order is a restoration of violated rights, because it gives the right to a certain number of operators who handle migrant transactions to exercise their profession, and … it restores the right for Africans to emigrate, to travel, to go to any destination they please.”
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