In Niger, a transition that speaks of security from Niamey while the villages await the state

An examination of the widening gap between the security rhetoric of the transition and the daily experience of populations exposed to attacks.

They pledged to reclaim control. To restore security. To return to Niger its sovereignty and its dignity. Three years after the July 2023 coup d’état, the Conseil national pour la sauvegarde de la patrie (CNSP) continues to present its seizure of power as a historic break.

Yet far from Niamey, a different reality is taking shape.

In areas regularly struck by armed groups, communities continue to live with fear, with uncertainty and, at times, with the sense of having been left to fend for themselves. Villages are hit, families are displaced, livelihoods are brought to a standstill. And one question keeps returning: where are the leaders when the attacks come?

That, perhaps, is where one of the most troubling contradictions of this military transition lies.

A legitimacy built on security, exercised at a distance

Since taking power, the CNSP has made the security question one of the principal arguments for its legitimacy. The overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum was justified, among other things, by the deterioration of the security situation.

The promise was clear: to do better.

Yet in the regions most exposed to violence, notably in the west of the country, attacks continue to set the rhythm of daily life. Faced with this reality, one observation fuels the questions: the officials who embody the transition rarely appear in the areas directly hit, at the very moment when residents confront the consequences of those attacks.

The authorities communicate from the capital. They announce operations, hail military victories, promise responses. But for the populations living close to the most dangerous zones, the questions are far more concrete: who comes to assess the damage? Who meets the affected families? Who explains what happened, and what will be done to prevent it from happening again?

A power that has made security its principal justification cannot indefinitely content itself with discussing war from the offices of the capital.

A protected centre, a pressured periphery

This is among the most visible paradoxes of the system put in place since the coup d’état.

At the summit, the regime’s own security has become an absolute priority. Signs of distrust within the military apparatus itself, shifts in the hierarchy and a multiplication of control measures all point to a power preoccupied above all with its own stability.

Meanwhile, far from the political centre, populations remain confronted with another form of insecurity: the kind that kills, displaces, closes schools, destroys local economies and upends everyday life.

Two realities appear to coexist. On one side, a power focused on its survival and on the protection of its apparatus. On the other, citizens still waiting for the promise of protection made in the aftermath of the coup to translate concretely into their own lives.

Sovereignty, after all, should not stop at the gates of Niamey.

The human cost concealed behind the military communiqués

Families, fields and classrooms

Behind every military statement lies a reality that official figures rarely convey in its full dimension.

• families abandoning their villages;
• farmers hesitating to return to their fields;
• traders whose businesses have been paralysed;
• children whose schooling has been disrupted;
• entire communities living in expectation of the next attack.

It is precisely in these territories that the success or the failure of the transition ought to be measured. Not solely in official ceremonies. Not exclusively in speeches about sovereignty. But in the state’s capacity to protect those who have neither escort, nor palace, nor special security arrangement.

The problem is not only military. It is also political. For when a population senses that its leaders are visible at ceremonies, speeches and announcements, yet absent when danger strikes, confidence inevitably begins to erode.

A transition more at ease with messaging than with the front line

The CNSP has built a substantial part of its image on the break with the previous system. New partners, a new diplomatic discourse, the denunciation of foreign influence: communication around sovereignty has become one of the pillars of the regime.

But communication is no substitute for presence.

A state may announce victories. It may denounce its adversaries. It may mobilise the vocabulary of patriotism and resistance.

One question nevertheless remains: do populations genuinely feel more protected?

Here the official discourse reaches its limits. Sovereignty is not measured solely by the number of foreign partners expelled or welcomed. It is also measured by a state’s capacity to control its territory and to protect its citizens, particularly those living in the most vulnerable areas. And when attacks continue while populations remain exposed, slogans ultimately collide with a reality far harder to disguise.

A question that concerns a system, not a single man

The question now facing Niger goes beyond General Abdourahamane Tiani alone. It concerns an entire system of governance.

Can a seizure of power continue to be justified by the security failures of the previous regime without accepting, three years later, to be judged on the same ground? Can proximity to the people be claimed while populations in the most exposed areas await a more visible presence of the state? And above all, how long can a transition ask the population to wait while the promise that founded its arrival in power remains largely unfulfilled?

True patriotism is not measured by the force of a speech. It is also measured by a leader’s capacity to look his people’s suffering in the face. To go where the state is expected. To own failures as well as victories. And to understand that a power does not protect a nation from the offices of the capital alone.

The test that will define the record of the transition

In Niger, the authorities continue to speak of sovereignty, of security and of rupture. But in the areas where attacks persist, another reality imposes its own questions.

Can a regime present itself as the saviour of a people without going to meet those who live every day with the consequences of insecurity?

That may be where the true assessment of the transition lies. Not in slogans. Not in ceremonies. Not in televised declarations. But on those roads, in those villages and among those families who, when attacks occur, are still waiting to learn whether the state will truly come to them.

For governing a country at war does not consist solely of protecting the power. It consists, first of all, of not leaving the people alone to face the war.