The Sahel Seeks Sovereignty

Introduction

In September 2023, coming on the heels of coups led by progressive factions of the military, the heads of state of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger met in Bamako (Mali) to sign the Charter of Liptako-Gourma Establishing the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).¹

Article VI of the charter stipulates that:

Any violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracting parties shall be considered as an aggression against the other parties and shall give rise to a duty of assistance and relief by all the parties, individually or collectively, including the use of armed force, to restore and ensure security within the area covered by the alliance.²

The move to form the AES was a direct response to the threat of military intervention in Niger by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) following the country’s popularly supported military coup. ECOWAS, along with the African Union (AU), also imposed sanctions and suspended the memberships of all three AES member states following their respective coups: Mali in August 2020, Burkina Faso in January 2022, and Niger in July 2023.

In January 2024, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger jointly announced their withdrawal from ECOWAS. The decision, which became official in January 2025, was justified as follows:

The brave peoples of Burkina, Mali, and Niger note with deep regret and great disappointment that the organisation [ECOWAS] has strayed from the ideals of its founding fathers and from Pan-Africanism. It no longer serves the interests of its peoples but has instead become a threat to its member states and populations, whose happiness it is supposed to guarantee.³

The leaders of the AES – Mali’s Assimi Goïta, Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, and Niger’s Abdourahamane Tchiani – are united by their emergence from popular coups and their impatience with ECOWAS’s pro-Western politics. They represent a new generation of military officers channelling widespread public frustration with French neocolonialism, and their withdrawal from ECOWAS is rooted in the bloc’s historical limitations.

Though ECOWAS was established in 1975 with the Pan-African rhetoric of leaders like Ghana’s General Acheampong, who promised that this new regional organisation would ‘remove centuries of division and artificial barriers imposed on West Africa from outside’, it was always a limited project. In reality, it was established to focus on economic issues, such as creating a common market, without serious aims for political integration.⁴

This limited scope was immediately hobbled by internal divisions and, more significantly, competing external loyalties. The parallel francophone West African Economic Community (CEAO), backed by France, often subverted the bloc’s goals. This was demonstrated during the Chadian crisis of 1979–1981, when France and the CEAO undermined Nigeria’s peacekeeping mission, turning it into a failure for ECOWAS and a victory for their own bloc. Similarly, existing military pacts between France and its former colonies stymied efforts to create a common defence strategy.⁵

It is this history of internal division and persistent foreign influence that informs the AES perspective today. The alliance argues that ECOWAS now acts as a regional enforcer of external interests, betraying its founding principles by falling ‘under the influence of foreign powers’.6

Consequently, at the Niamey summit where the AES was launched, the member states affirmed that their withdrawal from ECOWAS is definitive, even as they plan transitions to civilian rule.

Though mainstream security institutions, political commentators, and non-governmental agencies acknowledged the failure of ECOWAS and other security partnerships to provide meaningful security in the region, they widely condemned the steps taken by the AES as ‘a huge blow to a regional integration project’ that would likely increase ‘greater fractures’ and ‘exacerbate the worsening [security] situation’ in the region.7

Yet, a counternarrative is forming across the Sahel. From the perspective not only of the AES’s political leaders but also local grassroots organisations and the broader population, the alliance was forged in the crucible of the broader contemporary insecurities and inequalities faced by many Global South countries actively grappling with questions of sovereignty and development. For AES members, 2023 marked a collective rupture with failed security arrangements (such as the G5 Sahel), the delegitimised leadership of regional bodies like ECOWAS and the AU, and long-standing and unequal political entanglements with the European Union, France, and the United States – all underpinned by decades of neoliberal economic policy.⁸

This dossier explores the emergence of the AES and seeks to stimulate a debate on the current conjuncture in the region. We see this new formation as an example of anti-imperialist regionalism within the broader context of how Global South states navigate sovereignty, dependency, and internal-external security challenges. It invites reflection and debate on the meaning and implications of this return to the path of sovereignty – not as nostalgic nationalism, but as a bold and necessary attempt to reclaim political autonomy, economic self-determination, and civilisational dignity in the face of hyper-imperialism.

From Colonial Rule to Flag Independence

Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are land-locked neighbours with significant portions of their territories straddling the southern edge of the Sahara. Together, they account for roughly 45% of West Africa’s land mass and 17% of its population, or 73 million people combined (Niger, 26.2 million; Mali, 23.8 million; and Burkina Faso, 23 million).⁹

These nations share deeply rooted cultural norms, with a significant emphasis on communal values, oral traditions, a predominantly agrarian lifestyle, and societal structures and daily life profoundly influenced by the dominant religion, Islam.

Like much of West Africa, these countries experienced the contradictions of colonial rule most acutely during the Second World War. While the Normandy landings are among the most celebrated moments in French military history, what is often left out of this narrative is that many of the troops and labour corps who helped secure victory over Nazi Germany were Africans from French colonies, including what are now Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Their sacrifice on European soil contributed to a growing political awareness and laid the groundwork for postwar demands for equality and self-determination.¹⁰

In the wake of the war, and encouraged by the emerging socialist bloc, the call for independence accelerated. In Niger, for instance, the Nigerien Progressive Party (PPN) was founded in 1946 and affiliated with the African Democratic Rally (RDA), a Pan-African, anti-colonial movement led by figures such as Modibo Keïta in Mali and Ahmed Sékou Touré in Guinea. The RDA initially demanded equal treatment with French citizens but quickly shifted toward demanding full independence. In Burkina Faso, the Voltaic Union (UV) party joined the RDA in hopes of building a regionally coordinated national liberation front, though the UV ultimately dissolved under French pressure. This political awakening would lay the foundation for national liberation struggles in West Africa.

Following the costly defeat in Vietnam in 1954 and amid the escalating war in Algeria (1954–1962), France faced growing pressure at home and abroad. Fearing a total loss of economic and political influence in Africa, President Charles de Gaulle, newly returned to power, called for a referendum in 1958 as part of the new constitution of the Fifth Republic. The referendum offered African colonies two choices: vote ‘yes’ to remain part of the Franco-African Community, under French influence, (the so-called ‘transitionary’ option, which promised deferred independence while keeping key powers in French hands), or vote ‘no’ for immediate independence, with the threat of sudden French withdrawal and looming economic instability. Djibo Bakary, the founder of the Sawaba party (meaning ‘freedom’ in Hausa) and later head of the Nigerien government after the first elections in 1957, led the ‘vote no’ campaign. In the end, only Guinea, under the leadership of Sékou Touré, successfully voted ‘no’, becoming the first West African French colony to gain independence in 1958.

Advocates for a full break with France, like Bakary, were met with domestic repression and sidelined by colonial collaborators, including traditional leaders, colonial administrators, and évolués (meaning ‘the evolved ones’, these were Africans who had been educated in French institutions, granted limited rights or status, and groomed to serve the colonial order).¹¹

To sabotage the referendum in Niger and undermine Sawaba, which had also fought against French uranium exploitation, de Gaulle sent a new governor: Don Jean Colombani. The Colombani government used its full control over key state institutions – such as security, finance, and territorial administration – to launch a campaign of repression, intimidation, and even psychological warfare, most notably by dropping leaflets from planes warning that ‘no’ voters were enemies of the state.12

Despite widespread public support for Sawaba, massive electoral fraud ensured a manufactured victory for the ‘vote yes’ campaign in Niger in 1958.

Nonetheless, the victory of Guinea’s ‘vote no’ campaign that same year, building on Ghana’s earlier independence from Britain in 1957, forced the French to cede more ground on the question of political independence, and in 1960, seventeen African countries – including fourteen former French colonies – declared independence. Yet this flag independence was achieved with no real economic transformation. French tutelage and discretion continued, and economic control was retained through a range of ‘cooperation’ agreements, including defence accords, technical assistance protocols, and financial arrangements such as the CFA franc system. One such agreement was the April 1961 defence accord signed by Côte d’Ivoire, Benin (formerly Dahomey), and Niger, which enabled ‘France’s unrestricted use’ of assets of military interest.¹³

In the case of Niger, France also maintained significant control through the following mechanisms, reflecting a broader pattern employed across the region:

• Colonial debt regimes: Niger was required to ‘reimburse’ France for colonial-era infrastructure, such as roads and schools constructed through forced labour.

• Resource control: France retained the right of first refusal over Niger’s strategic exports, particularly uranium, and French companies received preferential access to key sectors of the economy.

• Tax exemptions: Based on the principle of non-double taxation, French businesses operating in Niger paid taxes only in France and were exempt from local obligations – including duties, sales taxes such as value-added taxes, and even fuel taxes – which significantly undermined the country’s fiscal revenue.

• Monetary dependency: Niger was required to use the CFA franc, a currency issued and regulated by the French Treasury, limiting its control over monetary and fiscal policy.

• Military entrenchment: France maintained military bases and was granted ‘free use of military installations’. This included unrestricted movement on land, air, and waters; free access to transportation and communication infrastructure; and the right to install aerial and maritime signalling and transmission systems.¹⁴

Furthermore, Annex II of the 1961 defence accord secured the military’s role as an enforcer of French capital interests and economic policy in the signatory countries. Notably, Article I of the annex established two categories of strategic raw materials: 1) liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons; and 2) uranium, thorium, lithium, and beryllium, as well as their ores and compounds. Article II stated that ‘the French Republic shall regularly inform the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, the Republic of Dahomey, and the Republic of Niger of the policy it intends to follow concerning strategic raw materials and products, taking into account the general needs of defence, the evolution of resources, and the situation of the world market’ [emphasis added]. Article V stated that the Africans in turn had to ensure that France was ‘kept informed of programmes and projects concerning the export outside the territory… of second-category raw materials and strategic products’. In addition, all three countries were required to ‘facilitate, for the benefit of the French armed forces, the storage of strategic raw materials and products’ and, when defence interests required it, ‘limit or prohibit their export to other countries’.¹⁵

By embedding economic directives within military cooperation frameworks, the accord transformed the country’s defence infrastructure into a tool for safeguarding French commercial and geopolitical interests.

As the Cold War ended, France shifted its Africa policy by introducing ‘political conditionality’ at the 1990 La Baule summit, with President Mitterrand declaring that French aid would be tied to so-called democratic reforms such as multiparty elections.16

This ushered in a wave of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) imposed across Africa in the 1980s, such as in Mali, where austerity measures, public sector cuts, and trade liberalisation accompanied the country’s 1984 re-entry into the CFA franc zone. The 1990s ushered in a second wave of SAPs on the continent, especially after the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, when the currency was halved in value under pressure from France, the IMF, and the World Bank. Framed as a measure to boost exports and restore financial stability, in reality the devaluation triggered sharp price increases, wage erosion, and widespread unrest across the region. This second phase combined economic liberalisation with donor-enforced governance reforms.¹⁷

While framed as democratisation, these changes reinforced neocolonial control through debt, privatisation, and externally managed state restructuring.

These reconfigured instruments of domination were accompanied by the expansion of US military presence under the pretext of combatting terrorism. In 2002, the United States launched the Pan-Sahel Initiative, which marked the beginning of a sustained Western military presence in a number of countries in the region, including Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania, later expanding into Burkina Faso under its successor, the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership in 2005.

The regional security crisis was, as Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Maïga explained to the UN General Assembly in 2024, ‘exacerbated by NATO’s reckless military intervention in Libya in 2011’.¹⁸

The collapse of the Libyan state opened the floodgates for unregulated arms trade and growing terrorist activities. The bombing of what was then one of the most developed African states – with the highest Human Development Index figures on the continent and large infrastructural development projects such as the Great Man-Made River irrigation project – was widely seen as a turning point. It also undermined the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, which was ready to send a mission to Libya’s capital, Tripoli, when the first bombs were dropped.¹⁹

2) The active participation of popular organisations. Popular organisations have shaped core elements of the national agenda and are actively participating in its construction. When the coup in Niger took place in July 2023, mass organisations across all sectors laid siege to French military bases and the French embassy – not only to celebrate the toppling of a flailing regime and defend the coup, but also to assert long-standing demands to eject the French neocolonial forces. Prior to the coup, social movements had already begun to build a mass front against imperialism, a process that can be traced to popular organising in 2022 building upon decades of political organisation and education. When Niger’s military government broke with France, it signalled to the people that their interests were being advanced. Grassroots leaders have since continued to call for the AES to uphold its anti-imperialist commitments and have emphasised the need for institutional mechanisms that ensure both accountability and popular participation. Effred Mouloul Al-Hassan, secretary general of the Nigerien School Union, articulated this dynamic of conditional support at a November 2024 conference in Niamey: ‘We support you as long as you are for the people. If not, we will fight you as we have fought the colonialists’.³²

3) The development of endogenous Pan-African, anti-imperialist national programmes. The new coup governments have initiated new national programmes that have a distinctly anti-imperialist orientation based on endogenous development models and the region’s social and intellectual heritage. Mali’s National Strategy for Emergence and Sustainable Development (SNEDD 2024–2033) outlines a medium-term programme for national renewal rooted in a historical rupture with externally imposed models of governance and development. SNEDD 2024–2033 is informed by Mali Kura ɲɛtaasira ka bɛn san 2063 ma (A New Mali: A Vision for 2063), a government-issued foresight report that articulates a broader vision for the country’s future.³³

Together, these frameworks seek to re-anchor national reconstruction in Mali’s precolonial political thought and ethical traditions.

As part of its redefinition of national identity and institutional priorities, SNEDD 2024–2033 explicitly links Mali’s post-coup renewal to three pillars of the country’s civilisational heritage. First, the Manden Charter – the constitution of the Mali Empire, created in 1236 and often cited as one of the world’s earliest declarations of human rights – which promoted values such as social solidarity, protection of vulnerable sectors of the population, and participatory governance through assembly-based decision-making. Second, the legal codes of the Massina Empire (1818–1862), founded in the Inner Niger Delta in central Mali, which combined Islamic jurisprudence with local governance to institutionalise justice, environmental stewardship, and checks on executive authority. Third, the manuscript traditions of Timbuktu, which span law, science, ethics, and public administration and reflect centuries of homegrown intellectual production and debate on just rule, the moral responsibilities of leadership, and the pursuit of knowledge in service of the common good.