Is Niger’s junta mistaking all dissent for conspiracy?
When a leader seizes power through a coup, the fear of being toppled by the same method can become a permanent obsession. In Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani appears to be living that nightmare.
The 29 august shock that changed everything
On july 26, 2023, General Tiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum. Three years later, on august 29, 2026, the man who took power by force faced his own attempted overthrow. The presidential palace came under attack. Air base 101 was targeted. State television was threatened. For hours, the loyalty of the military apparatus hung in the balance, with some soldiers hesitating to take sides as mutineers tried to rally other officers.
For a leader who rose through a coup, the message was brutal: the very scenario he had helped set in motion could now be turned against him.
A crackdown unfolds
The putsch attempt did not topple Tiani, but it profoundly altered the power equation. Reports indicate that the junta relied on several hundred russian troops from the Africa Corps to retake air base 101. At least 200 soldiers, mainly from special forces, have been arrested since august 29.
Then the command chain began to shift. On september 11, the chief of defense staff, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, was dismissed. Days later, four ministers were replaced. Officially, these moves are described as reorganization and securing the chain of command. But in politics, timing tells its own story.
The september 17 decree and its targets
On september 17, a new decree stripped five Nigeriens of their nationality on a provisional basis. Among them: Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, a former prime minister under Bazoum. The decree cites accusations of intelligence with foreign powers, spreading data that could disturb public order, participating in an effort to demoralize the army and the nation, and undermining state security.
These are accusations, not final judicial convictions. But politically, the symbolism is heavy. Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou is not just any opponent he belongs to the former state apparatus, having served under the president Tiani overthrew.
Bazoum’s shadow lingers
Three years after the coup, Mohamed Bazoum remains a central figure in Niger’s political confrontation. His regime is gone, his institutions dismantled, but the men who served him keep appearing in the new power’s security and judicial files. With this decree, five more Nigeriens are provisionally stripped of nationality under a mechanism established in 2024. The total now stands at 25, according to the state news agency.
This raises a troubling question: at what point does defending the state stop being a security operation and become a political cleanup? The question must be asked without presuming guilt or innocence.
Hunting for enemies within
Since august 29, the threat to Tiani’s power no longer comes only from armed groups or external adversaries. It can now emerge from within the military apparatus itself. When soldiers’ loyalty becomes a central concern, the temptation to seek out culprits, relays, accomplices or sponsors grows.
The risk is that suspicion becomes a method of governance. A soldier replaced. A minister sidelined. Troops arrested. Former Bazoum officials targeted. And now citizens stripped of nationality. Taken separately, each act has an official justification. Taken together, they paint a picture of a power that, after being directly threatened, seeks to control every circle that might represent a vulnerability.
The paradox of a regime born from a putsch
How can a government durably rule when a power born from a coup discovers that another coup can be applied to it? General Tiani now knows this mechanism from the inside. He knows a military power can seem firmly installed until a few officers decide to cross a line. August 29 proved it. What was supposed to be impossible became possible.
When a power realizes it can be overthrown by the same methods that brought it to the top, fear of the next plot can quickly become a political obsession.
Concentration of power and its limits
Critics see a worrying drift. By deciding who is loyal, who is suspect, who must be arrested, who must be sidelined, and now who can provisionally keep their nationality, Tiani gives the impression of a leader acting as if he alone holds the keys to the republic. As if Niger must be divided between those who support the power and those who must be excluded. As if serving under Bazoum is now a permanent political fault. As if every dissenting voice must necessarily hide a plot.
Tiani is not Niger. But the concentration of decisions around his person fuels a fundamental question: how far can a regime go when, to protect itself, it ends up seeing threats behind every face?
A cycle of purges and suspicion
The september 17 decree is not merely a matter of nationality. It is another episode in a larger battle: that of a power seeking to eliminate uncertainty around itself. Between the 2023 coup and the 2026 putsch attempt, Niger seems to have tipped into a cycle where each crisis produces new purges, each suspicion calls for a new sanction, and each challenge reinforces the concentration of power.
One question remains, perhaps the most important: by fighting real or supposed plots, is Tiani building a system where any dissent automatically becomes a conspiracy? If so, the problem is no longer just who wants to overthrow him. It is also why a power that claims to be firmly installed now seems so afraid of those around it. And above all, how far this logic will go because when a regime starts treating its own citizens as potential threats, the line between protecting the state and protecting the power becomes dangerously thin.
By Agnès Mvogo — Territorial Security and State Policy Analyst