NIGER: An Open Letter to Ambassador of France to Ghana, Your Excellency, Ambassador Jules Armand Aniambossou

Seth Kwame Awuku

Your Excellency, please permit me to write to your high office on France's continuous refusal to leave Niger and its accompanying exploitation, thereby resulting in a coup and revolution. Indeed, France must leave Niger and resume diplomatic talks with the New regime.

Mr. Ambassador, I do not write as an individual or a non-state actor to assert a view or challenge a state actor like France in International Relations. No, not at all.

But it is my fervent belief and one which, I believe, is shared by many that, in this contemporary world of today, it is not only state actors that must play or should play an important role in International Relations. Individuals too must have a stake on matters affecting their global world too.

Against this backdrop, allow me to state, without any equivocation, Your Excellency, that France's continuous refusal to leave Niger or their desperation for control of that resource-rich country, cannot in the minds of right thinking members of society, be acceptable and justifiable.

Your Excellency, indeed, the conduct of France is offensive to the concept of state sovereignty in international law as well as contrary to the prohibition of threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state (Article 2.4 of the U.N Charter).

If your authority permits me, your Excellency, until the last two months or so, I knew very little of Niger. Probably, like many Ghanaians, all I knew of Niger was that it was in a hot Sahel West African country with very high temperatures.

But I was struck when driving through the streets of Ghana, a young boy of about 8-years-old approached me in the traffic. His eyes looked dull and sad. His shirt was shabby and tattered. In the middle of traffic, he grouped his left five fingers, pointing them to his hungry mouth and mumbling to me: 'give me food, give me money please’. I looked into his sad eyes, recognizing his non Ghanaian accent and asked: 'where are you from? 'I am from Niger, ' he responded.

Your Excellency, I was not only saddened by the plight of the begging young Nigerien in our streets, I took an interest in that country, Niger. I wanted to know more, read more and learn more. I was curious about this former French colony, Niger.

I read in earnest, the literature on Niger, learning that France mines and receives 25% of Niger’s Uranium and yet avoids paying the world market rates. In fact, I observed that under the ousted president, Niger received from France only €0.80/kg for its sale of uranium. Interestingly, the current military junta has increased the price of uranium from €0.80/kg to €200/kg.

Also, it dawned on me that Niger does not only have uranium, it has coal, gold, iron ore, tin, phosphates, petroleum, molybdenum, salt, and gypsum and yet the United Nations (UN) Human Development Index ranked Niger as the second least-developed of 188 countries.

Your Excellency, I am tempted to believe that France's disdain for the new military junta; France's refusal to leave sovereign Niger and France's threat of invasion of that sovereign country is that the military junta refuses to be on good terms with France.

Why should Niger's rich natural resources be used to support France's glamourous lifestyle and their sweet mouth at the expense of hungry mouths in Niger to be fed? Mr. Ambassador, I wonder and ponder. Your Excellency, I am perturbed by the virtues of good governance and good conscience.

I must at this juncture, with vim and vigor, submit to your high office that, the treatment of Nigeriens, Your Excellency, is the polar opposite of the lofty ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality to which France has long aspired.

Your Excellency, President Macron has no moral justification or legal right to be colonialistic and paternalistic, supercilious and contemptuous, if Niger asks France to leave their sovereign state.

Indeed, can it be said in International Law that, the rights of a friendly African president to France or a democratically elected individual like that of outed president Bazoum supersedes the rights of the Nigerien sovereign state? No! Your Excellency. It cannot be so.

Let me conclude, Your Excellency, if your high office will permit me, to assuage the good people of France and their government that contrary to the fears of France, it will not slide down into the rank of a third [world] power if it leaves Niger and Africa. Indeed, it would still have a position in 21st-century history if it begins to deal fairly, equitably and equally with African states.