Scholars Look to Ethnicity to Understand Niger Coup

ADF STAFF

As the world tries to understand what led to the coup in Niger, one factor continues to face scrutiny: ethnicity.

Throughout the continent’s history, coups have been closely linked to ethnic grievances. This is particularly true when the military is packed with one ethnic group and does not reflect the population it serves. What emerges is a belief that access to power and career advancement is tied to ethnicity.

“We can link a large number of coups to ethnicity,” Dr. Olayinka Ajala, lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University, told ADF. “Ethnicity has always been an issue when you look at governance, democracy and the rule of law.”

In Niger, now-deposed President Mohamed Bazoum is from the Ouled Slimane group, which is composed of ethnic Arabs who trace their origin to Libya. They are a small minority in Niger, perhaps representing only about 0.5% of the population. Coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani is from the Hausa ethnic group that is a majority in the country.

Observers say ethnicity presented a problem for Bazoum from the moment he took office.

“Presidents who inherit constituencies where they come from a minority, … they feel like they are under siege,” Dr. Edgar Githua, an international relations and diplomacy expert at the U.S. International University in Nairobi, told Voice of America. “You are in the minority and the other people who control government are from other ethnic groups who believe, or do not feel, you deserve to lead them.”

Ethnic anger was fueled by persistent, unfounded rumors that Bazoum is a “foreigner.”

Ajala said ethnic divisions are a problem in the Nigerien military. Former President Mahamadou Issoufou attempted to modernize the military by recruiting more Soldiers from minority ethnic groups, including the Tuaregs, and instituting a quota system. But the divisions and unequal access to top posts persisted.

“These things take a while to materialize for the smaller ethnic groups to reach the top of the ladder,” Ajala said. “It takes in the range of 20 to 30 years for an officer to grow up through the ranks and become a brigadier general or general … So we can see that the military is still predominantly led by the Hausas because the quota system will take a while for officers to get to the top.”

Ajala said any attempt by Bazoum to restructure the military was bound to be met with stiff resistance. “Through interviewing people and talking to people on the ground, I found out that ethnicity was a major problem within the military,” Ajala said. “There were then rumors of an impending restructuring of the military which would have resulted in the removal of Tchiani and that was one of the things that precipitated the coup.”

Throughout Africa’s post-independence history, leaders have engaged in what is called “ethnic stacking” of the military. This occurs when a strongman ruler fills the upper ranks of the armed forces with members of a loyal ethnic group. In the short term, leaders believe this insulates them from coup attempts.

“Ethnic stacking encourages security force loyalty and decreases coup risk by currying in-group favoritism, linking patronage opportunities to shared ethnicity, and binding soldiers to the fate of their leader,” wrote researcher Kristen Harkness in the paper, “The Ethnic Stacking in Africa Dataset: When leaders use ascriptive identity to build military loyalty.”

In the long term, however, ethnic stacking can actually lead to coups since groups on the outside see the only path to achieve military or political power is at the point of a gun. Likewise, when political power changes hands, as occurred in Niger in 2021, the ethnically aligned military feels threatened and may be inclined to launch a coup.

“Ethnic exclusion from important state institutions, including potentially the military, creates inequality and group grievances that can motivate rebellion,” Harkness wrote.

Ethnic stacking also decreases effectiveness of the armed forces. Other strategies, including “counterbalancing,” where leaders concentrate ethnicities in different paramilitary units to avoid a center of power, also tend to decrease battlefield effectiveness and lead to long-term instability.

In a comprehensive analysis, Harkness found that 33.3% of African leaders ethnically stack security institutions.

It is unknown to what degree ethnic grievances played a role in the Niger coup. But Ajala said history shows that in relatively small militaries like Niger, ethnic divisions and unequal access to top posts tend to cause trouble.

“Regardless of how you structure this, you will still not be able to satisfy everyone,” Ajala said, “Because there are not enough posts to go around. And you will discover that one ethnic group will still dominate, and this is what we are seeing in Niger.”