ECOWAS on the coup in Niger
Toyin Falola
Toyin Falola
Funso Afolayan
"In the event the Authority’s demands are not met within one week, [ECOWAS will] take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force; To this effect, the Chiefs of defense staff of ECOWAS are to meet immediately.”
An impressive and extra-ordinary declaration by all accounts. It will be difficult to take this back or or for all these Heads of States to eat their words or may be not. If the Communique is not “fake news” or empty vituperations, then this is a declaration of war against the coup plotters. With France against the coup, the US ambivalent, and Russia entangled in its own war, and ECOWAS “committed" to fight, and ready to put its money and forces where its mouth is, there may yet be hope for the restoration of constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. This could mark a new era for ECOWAS and for the triumph of constitutional rule in West Africa. More troubled days are ahead.
We have to wait and see.
Funso Afolayan
On Jul 30, 2023, at 3:10 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:NigerGet Outlook for iOS
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/PH0PR06MB900498ACA4C3F4E6D1C79048F804A%40PH0PR06MB9004.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.
kojo
Cornelius Hamelberg
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2023 4:34 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: toyin...@austin.utexas.edu <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ECOWAS on the coup in Niger
EXTERNAL EMAIL: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
Emmanuel Udogu
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL0PR01MB45145466054B6F1B91284E1EDE05A%40BL0PR01MB4514.prod.exchangelabs.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
So the big men in ECOWAS want to start a new war in Africa?
Why don’t they first try to put out the fire that’s raging in Sudan?
To the Big Brains in ECOWAS, listen carefully
Putting it straight: Richard Medhurst: Niger
For both the super African and the little brains; Elementary:
The Tragedy of White Injustice - a poem by Marcus Garvey
And by the way, ain’t it good to know that BARBADOS is now leading the fight for REPARATIONS whilst some House Negros ( toms) who don’t know what time of day it is are busy wanting to raise a posse to go and defend their Masters’ interest in what they believe is his plantation where they are mining gold and uranium.
Straight from Black Skin, White Masks, the same mentality, and it’s what colonialism has done to some of us: A footnote on “big brain” a much less powerful variant of “Bird Brain”. He can’t stop beating his chest about his professorship ( the only game in his town) and when I have a question about recent Bible Scholarship, it's time for him to tell me about his this and that learned great pastor that has a couple of PhDs in Mathematics, implied:a Ph.D. in Mathematics should help the holder make a wise informed decision such as to pick up his cross and to follow Jesus first to his crucifiction and then, subsequently, to Heaven) - at which point I wanted to ask him if Abraham / Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Ezra, or even his Jesus had one ( a Ph.D. in Mathematics) and if in his lifetime Jesus spoke Greek or Hebrew and if he himself had ever heard of or read Spinoza? I was on the brink of quoting the Bible to him about “filthy rags” and to add insult to injury, to add cream to the apple pie, that as far as some of us with a little learning are concerned, by “filthy rags'' Paul probably meant some used and discarded menstrual pads, and that for the rest of us unappreciative illiterates and ignoramus, poetically speaking that apart from filthy rags the much-vaunted Professorship in question, might as well be a heap of cow dung, a dunghill….
Cornelius Hamelberg
Harrow, Kenneth
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 2:27:55 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cornelius Hamelberg
After devoting some sleepless & fruitless thinking on what Ken said to Professor Jibrin Ibrahim in another thread, that “france was once the neocolonial power you describe in the 1960s and 1970s. but that changed, and changed again”, I took Achille Mbembe ‘s On the Postcolony off the shelf for brief consultations, skimmed through chapter 6 ( “God’s Phallus” ) which is where the book ought to have actually started ( Bereshit is always the best place to start) skimmed through all the chapters and the conclusion “ The Final Manner” which begins with “Who is a slave , if not the person who, everywhere and always, possesses life,property, and body as if they were alien things?”, as a refresher, and can confirm that apart from the occasional change in management from direct White to local Black Government Management - essentially what independence was all about or supposed to be all about, not much else has really changed, and postcolony is still in pretty good shape, business going on as before, post-colony’s ( I almost wrote “coolies”) central bank still headquartered in Paris, postcolony still faithfully paying her colonial tax / tithes/ protection money, and apart from the spate of recent insurrections, military takeovers, the region awash with all kinds of weapons falling into the “ wrong” hands, especially after the violent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, not much else has changed in terms of the slave and plantation manager relations,vespecially not when the deputy plantation manger is a one helluva of a kind, benign, house negro / and I don’t want to call names,or name names, but David Diop’s The Renegade will do…
Ah epistemology, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, the limits to what we can claim that we really know. Just believe, says the Yoruba pastor, and starts yapping about “the rapture” when “the true believers” will be caught up in the air, with Jesus. And apart from Cardinal Zelensky and Sleepy Joe Biden, who else will be left behind, I wonder.
True or not true,“no one is interested in investing military troops or money to change the situation in niger”, says Ken, and then Ken seems to be non-violently asking a question in the next breath, a nice confession of being in the dark (ignorant) like Cornelius Ignoramus (Ph.D. in Ignorance). Did anyone actually see/witness the resurrected Jesus ascending to heaven like a cosmonaut or a bird ( eagle) without wings? In fact, did he resurrect at all, and if not, where is the body? Where is the body right now? But in the very next breath, Ken only wonders, “Behind the scenes, who knows what the big powers are saying?”
This perspective was forwarded to me by our radical Pan-African freedom fighter from Ghana:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/31/ewsy-j31.html
As Ken the well-informed fully knows, and is free to speculate, behind the scenes it looks like it could advantage US, French, and the Imperial Western military capability, at least temporarily before complete chaos/mayhem takes over for the long haul, a long, bitter, protracted struggle, weapons flying in from all corners in that region. The US, France, EU, and NATO, are in no hurry to surrender their hitherto protected interests without a fight. If they cannot go in themselves guns blazing in this most critical emergency, and completely salvage the situation, then for a few dollars more, their surrogate partners-in-crime, the pliant, democratically holier-than-thou ECOWAS big shots,, ostensibly holier than our valiant military brothers in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, etc, will step in, pampered and financed by their Western masters, to do their bidding, with all the assistance, logistical backup, etc, as may be necessary.
After all, French troops and AFRICOM stationed all over Africa and always on the ready are not going to be standing idly by, watching their interests/profits, their lifeblood, and their reason for being there, all going up in unholy smoke or being annihilated by Niger's new military regime handing over Niger's most prized mineral assets to Ken's Most despised Wagner Inc and other foreign interests.
The only question to be asked could be, what is the legal status of the contracts signed by the ousted regime ( for the smooth delivery of Niger's mineral deposits to the impies…
Of course, a major problem for Niger could be the reality of being landlocked, and at the same time not being in control of their own airspace...
James Taylor: GAIA