The largest landlocked African state, that of Niger, is largely unknown to the international community.
Apart from the Organization for Economic Co-operation in West Africa, but also France, of which it was a colony, until it evolved into a member of the French Union, until 1958 and gained its independence, in 1960, Niger has not been found at the center of international interest and international developments.
Its name rightly causes confusion with Nigeria, the great African country, with its rich mineral wealth and exuberant presence and influence on the African Continent.
However, its geographical position, as a country of transit of migratory flows for decades, has given it, from 2015 until today, a weighty importance in the planning of the migration policy of the European Union.
As the main transit country of the flows, which usually come from Sub-Saharan Africa, it is a privileged interlocutor of the Western countries, which were tested by the flood of 2015, but also of the Community institutions, regarding the investment in the creation of dikes and the provision, of the necessary means and equipment in Niger, for the effective control and guarding of its borders. Moreover, about 80% of the country is covered by the Sahara desert, which makes any attempt to cross, without the assistance or tolerance of the state authorities, extremely dangerous.
To date the European Union has allocated more than 1.3 billion Euros to Niger to effectively control migration flows, with satisfactory results until recently. The political leadership of the country, which was overthrown by the coup d’état, was basically a stable and reliable interlocutor, but this does not mean that there were no problems and reactions.
It is characteristic that especially in the northern part of the country, where the station city of Agadez is located, the local economy had developed and revolved around the service of immigrants and candidates to cross the Sahara desert, in the direction of Libya, Algeria and Morocco and destinations in Western Europe.
Even the Army, as it is said, met and accompanied the caravans of immigrants, in the context of this peculiar local economy and the minimal options that its inhabitants have.
Niger, with a population now exceeding 25 million and growing by leaps and bounds, as there is no birth control policy, is considered one of the poorest countries in the world.
The overthrow of his elected government deprives the West and the European Union of a valuable ally in terms of controlling and stopping immigration flows. Given the declared involvement of the Russian mercenary Wagner, which, according to Prigozin’s statement, put 1,000 fighters at the disposal of the coup plotters of Niger, it increases the concern about the additional pressure it can exert, with the hybrid instrumentalization of immigration, on the European Union.
There is also the precedent of Wagner’s presence and action in Libya, the country of origin for immigrants, which strengthens the threat to Europe.
At the same time, the developments in Niger add one more mosaic to the multifactorial formation of the modern geopolitical correlation of forces. It confirms that Russian foreign policy utilizes the networks of influence and propaganda developed by Soviet advance services during the Cold War.
And which invest in deep knowledge of historical memory, which especially for Africa is related to colonialism. The same was recently seen with the reluctance of Latin American countries to unequivocally condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The geopolitical confrontation has scope, route and continuity.
