GII. 14 April 2020
PANKAJ SHARMA
A major diplomatic step by India to balance
China’s aggressive outreach in Africa went unnoticed when in the third week of
January this year, India inaugurated first ever convention made by it in Africa.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar inaugurated the Mahatma Gandhi International
Convention Centre (MGICC) in Western African state of Niger. With a tiny
presence of merely 150 Indians in a country of 2.25 people, Niger might sound
as a very insignificant country on the world map for India’s diplomatic
interests, but those equipped with some idea of its natural resources and
strategic importance had realised long back that developing intimate
relationship with Niger is in the long term interest for India.
Nearly 8 years ago, in June 2012, I
visited Niger representing one-man delegation of Indian National Congress,
which was then ruling the national government in India, to strengthen
party-to-party relationship with Niger’s ruling party PNDS Tarayya—Party for Democracy
and Socialism. Mahamadou Issoufou was heading the Government of Niger. Issoufou
is still the President of his nation. Mohamed Bazoum was the chairman of PNDS.
He was also the foreign minister. I had very relaxed and detailed meetings with
Issoufou, Bazoum and with various of his ministers during my visit. They all had
deep respects and liking for Mahatma Gandhi’s India. They all were intensely
inclined for greater cooperation with India and indicated their uneasiness with
expanding Chinese interests in the region.
I had developed an earnest rapport with Bazoum
and Foumakoye
Gado, who was the minister for oil, energy and mines at that time. Bazoum
narrated to me his 17 years old story when he became the foreign minister for
the first time in 1995 in the government of Prime Minister Hama Amadou and how
he held the position after Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara seized power in a military
coup a year after. He told me in details how PNDS opposed Maïnassara and he was
removed from his position after few months. Issoufou was the president of PNDS
and Bazoum was placed under house arrest along with him. They were released on
the orders of a court.
Six months after my visit, a huge
delegation from Niger comprising half a dozen senior ministers and PNDS Tarayya
functionaries visited New Delhi in January 2013. The delegation was led by Gado.
In addition to his ministerial responsibilities he was holding the position of
the secretary-general of the ruling party also. He has been a very close
confidant of president Issoufou for years. I was assigned the task of convening
their meetings with union ministers, etc by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The members of the delegation met with the then foreign minister Salman
Khurshid, Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit, Minister for Human Resource
Development, Minister of State in Prime Minister’s office, Minister of
Petroleum, Minister of Power, etc and senior office bearers of the Congress
party including the Chairman of party’s Foreign Affairs Department Dr. Karan
Singh. Each minister spent long hours with the delegation and a detailed report
was prepared based on the deliberations.
In addition to coal, gold, iron ore, tin,
phosphates, petroleum, molybdenum and gypsum, Niger has some of the largest
uranium reserves in the world. It is the fourth largest producer of uranium on
the globe. It is to be underlined that Russia is on 5th position,
China is on 8th and USA is on 8th position. Niger is a
ten times bigger producer of uranium than India. The discussions between the Niger
delegation and Indian leaders covered many important areas but as it was an exercise
in the direction of strengthening ‘party-to-party’ relationship, there was no scope
for signing any formal agreement. The informal drill was for chalking out a preliminary
roadmap.
By the time the relationship between the
Congress party and PNDS Tarayya and their leaderships started taking conducive
shape, India went into general election mode by the end of 2013 and in the summers
of 2014, Congress faced the colossal electoral setback of its lifetime. My
friends in Niger have been keeping in touch with me. When president Issoufou was
in New Delhi in October 2015 only for a day to participate in Africa Conclave
organised by prime minister Narendra Modi, he spared plentiful time for a
meeting with me.
Issoufou has emerged taller after
winning elections for the second time. He has everything the West wants in an
African leader. The approach ha adopted in tackling the problem of elevated
flow of migrants from Africa to Europe and the insecurity in Africa’s Sahel
region, Issoufou has established his international prominence. He played as a key partner for European
leaders who hoped to both block migration and prevent it through economic
development. The northern Nigerien city of Agadez had become a hub for migrants
coming from across West Africa, as it is a gateway to the Sahara, Libya, the
Mediterranean and, ultimately, to Europe. The crackdown had reduced the flow of
migrants through Agadez by 80 percent.
President Issoufou’s Niger is also an
important member of the ‘G5 Sahel Joint Force’, which deployed battalions from
Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad in an effort to improve security
in the Sahel and especially in the Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso border regions.
Niger has obvious attraction for USA and Europe due to its relative stability,
which contrasts with the endemic violence in neighbouring Libya, northern Mali,
northern Nigeria and Burkina Faso.
In contrast to various other
counterterrorism partners in Africa, Issoufou has genuine democratic
credentials. He was first elected in 2011 in a vote deemed free and fair by
many observers. The election followed a crisis in Niger involving civilian
overreach and a short-lived military junta. Additionally, Issoufou gladly shows
solidarity with the West at moments of crisis, for example by marching in a
rally in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo attack in 2015. Just two weeks after
the recent Paris summit on migration, Issoufou was in Germany to speak at the ‘Paths
of Peace’ conference on religious understanding.
Modi has matured a personal and cozy relationship
with Issoufou in the meantime. He has interacted with Issoufou on the side-lines
of the UN General Assembly, UNGA session in September last year. They held
deliberations on furthering economic and people-to-people cooperation between
India and Niger. MGICC in Niger is an outcome of the personal connect between both
these leaders. This is the time when Modi needs to utilise the goodwill of
Issoufou in swiftly entering into the personal corridors of the future presidency
in Niger, as Issoufou’s won’t be the president after this year.
Though, Issoufou has aggressively neutralised
his political rivals, his role in the fight against Boko Haram has earned him enormous
appreciation and he is the most popular West African leader today, but he will
be completing his current term of presidency in March 2021. General elections
in Niger are scheduled for the last week of December this year. Niger’s
constitution does not allow a person to hold office of president for more than
two terms of five years each. Therefore, Issoufou will not get third tenure. Then,
who after Issoufou? I feel, with his experience, candidness, reliability and
grasp, Interior Minister Bazoum could be the next president of Niger. Issoufou could
be the Chairman of ruling PNDS.
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