In a historic and bold move, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the 36-year-old leader of Burkina Faso, announced the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with Mali and Niger, aiming to unite their 72 million people into one powerful federation. Speaking passionately about their shared heritage and struggles, Traoré and his fellow leaders emphasized breaking free from colonial legacies and corrupt governments, promising cooperation in security, trade, and development. This dramatic shift away from Western influence, including severing ties with ECOWAS and Western military forces, marks a new era of sovereignty and unity in the Sahel region.

The youngest head of state in history praised God while resting his gauntletted hands on the desk in front of him in a packed auditorium in the capital city of Niamey, Niger. Not just for creating this Saturday, July 6, he added, but also for everything he had done and would do for the people of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, who are now united under Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s leadership in the confederated Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Burkina Faso’s 36-year-old interim leader addressed his vast audience, grinning and confident in his khaki fatigues and red beret, saying he was speaking to them as brothers and sisters rather than neighbors reports France24.

“We have the same blood that runs in our veins,” he said. “In our veins runs the blood of those valiant warriors who fought and won for us this land that we call Mali, Burkina, and Niger. In our veins runs the blood of those valiant warriors who helped the whole world rid itself of Nazism and many other scourges. In our veins runs the blood of those valiant warriors that were deported from Africa to Europe, America, Asia … and who helped to build those countries as slaves. In our veins runs the blood of worthy men, robust men, men who stood tall. And for this, we should be proud and grateful to be nationals of the AES.”

His teammates continued the refrain. Colonel Assimi Goïta, the acting president of Mali, spoke softly and amiably behind a thick black beard. He stated that the confederation they were establishing would eventually become a full-fledged federation that would bring 72 million people together as one community by permitting “the free circulation of people and goods” within the three-country bloc.

He declared, “We’re moving beyond individual national identities.” “Instead of citizens of Mali, Burkina Faso, or Niger, we’ll refer to ourselves as people of the AES. In this alliance, a Burkinabe or Nigerien will feel at home in Mali, and vice versa, without encountering administrative barriers.”

The three nations would pool their disparate resources to build extensive transportation and communications infrastructure, facilitate trade and the free movement of goods and people to support an industrial transformation and invest in their respective agriculture, mining, and energy sectors. These long-term goals were outlined in the joint communiqué of the summit.

According to the plan, this audacious mission would be promoted throughout the developing AES by government-certified digital platforms fed by “a narrative conforming to people’s aspirations” and speaking to them in their mother tongues rather than the French of their former imperial masters.

Friends in times of need

There has been a rough path leading to this federation that is becoming closer and closer. Since a succession of coups in July of last year brought military governments to power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and eventually Niger, the three countries have been cautiously approaching each other.

The three leaders that surfaced, Goïta of Mali, Traoré of Burkina Faso, and Abdourahamane Tiani of Niger, claimed that the complete incapacity of what they characterized as crooked and compromised civilian governments to defend their people against Islamist violence had spurred them to action. They emphasized that this violence ignored the black lines that men had drawn on maps, with the majority of the bloodiest combat occurring in the Liptako-Gourma Region, the large and permeable borderlands where the three states meet.

In response to the putsches, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an economic bloc that is presently led by regional heavyweight Nigeria, reacted angrily, enacting harsh trade sanctions and even threatening to use military force against Niger. Former colonial power France quickly backed this threat. The coup leaders reacted angrily to the threat, promising Bamako and Ouagadougou to defend Niger should it be attacked by the other West African countries.

Since then, all attempts at rapprochement between the rebel members of the West African bloc and the bloc have failed miserably. Niger’s border restrictions and penalties were lifted by ECOWAS, but the three disobedient states declared in January 2024 that they were leaving the bloc.

Niger’s Tiani declared that the alliance has “irrevocably” broken with ECOWAS in a statement that accompanied the signing of the treaty of confederation between the three governments on Saturday. The three governments already seem to be strengthening their collaboration; in April of this year, Niger consented to sell Mali 150 million liters of diesel at a price nearly half that of the market, providing much-needed assistance to a country suffering from chronic energy shortages.

The three states’ decision, according to Virginie Baudais, senior researcher and director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Sahel and West Africa Program, was partly influenced by the fact that regimes in the Sahel that received support from the West had failed for more than ten years to stem the flow of insurgent jihadist movements.

“It’s a response to the loss of credibility of the European states and of ECOWAS in the region in the fight against terrorism,” she said. “The three leaders all claim that they are achieving good results in the fight against terrorism thanks to their established military cooperation. Clearly, each country cannot fight against these groups operating in the Liptako-Gourma Region, and the only option is cooperation.”

Complete war

There is no one reason why the three countries are fighting armed insurgents, and there is no easy solution. A number of brutal jihadist movements have become entrenched throughout the Sahel due to a number of factors, including an armed campaign to establish a Tuareg nation in northern Mali, chaos caused by the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime across the Sahara, the pressing urgency that the worsening climate crisis has given to land conflicts between sedentary farmers and nomadic pastoralists, and, most importantly, the failure of these states to provide basic services to impoverished communities in the countries’ arid peripheries.

The United Nations peacekeeping force, in addition to French and US forces, has been fighting these movements for years. All three countries have terminated their military deals with Western powers, so those days are behind them. The final US troops, numbering almost a thousand, departed Niamey on Sunday. Mali appears to have asked the Russian mercenary Wagner Group to augment its own state security forces, but the AES has moved elsewhere in search of friends. In response, Traoré mobilized tens of thousands of armed volunteers to join the ranks of citizen militias and declared a policy of complete war against the insurgents.

“All three regimes use sovereignty as a political weapon and a means of legitimacy,” Baudais said. “They are determined to leave ECOWAS: European and American troops have been replaced by Russian allies. Diplomatically, they followed Moscow, and ECOWAS remained – for them – an instrument of the European powers, especially the colonial powers. Therefore, it is imperative to break away. They base their legitimacy on the independence of their countries, the choice of their partners and the respect for the interests of their populations.”

It’s difficult to gauge the extent of the AES’s combined efforts to subdue the various insurgency groups, according to her. Although the AES has celebrated the military government’s victory in taking back the northern Malian town of Kidal from Tuareg insurgents in November 2023, it is challenging to determine the precise amount of territory seized by the three countries due to a near complete media blackout.

“The situation varies from country to country,” Baudais said. “In terms of security, the situation in Burkina Faso is catastrophic. The strategy chosen is disastrous; the regime is hardening, and opponents are being arrested or disappearing. In Mali, the military regime continues to talk about its rise to power and its successes. Still, we see in our most recent research that more people realize that the situation on the ground is not improving.”

A political analyst from Niger, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed doubts that the military administrations were winning the wars they had planned.

“If I take the example of Niger, which I know best, the attacks haven’t stopped,” he said. “If anything, they’ve increased.”

A departure from tradition

The three regimes, however, also see this new alliance as a way to permanently sever the legacy of French colonialism and decades of “la Françafrique,” which is shorthand for what opponents of French foreign policy in Africa refer to as the former imperial power’s persistent political, military, and financial influence over its former colonies. This is evident from listening to the leaders speak. An ardent follower of Burkinabe Pan-African revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, Traoré was frank about France’s ongoing influence in Africa during his speech in Niamey.

“These imperialists have just one cliché in their heads – Africa as an empire of slaves,” Traoré said. “That’s how they see Africa. For them, Africa belongs to them. Our lands belong to them. Our subsoil belongs to them. They’ve never changed that framework, even today.”

Traoré has persisted in characterizing ECOWAS’s leaders as “house slaves” who are more interested in serving Western economic interests than the interests of their own people, despite the organization’s attempts to close the gap, including the appointment of recently elected Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye as a mediator with the departing states.

“Sovereigntism is the response to the dependence on colonial history,” Baudais said. “This rejection must call into question our approach and encourage European leaders and policymakers to better understand the contexts. The failure of the United States in Afghanistan greatly impacted the Sahel, and so did the failure of counter-terrorism in the Sahel. The willingness to take control of security is an important variable.”

According to Baudais, the French government had grossly misjudged the level of animosity its ostensibly ceaseless military operations had caused in its former colonies.

“It is, perhaps, a positive aspect of the crisis: the break from the history of colonial rule,” she said. “It could have gone smoothly, but the French authorities did not understand what was at stake in the Sahel. The breakup was, therefore, extremely violent.”

The political analyst with headquarters in Niger stated that no nation in a globalized world possessed complete autonomy and that the AES’s split from ECOWAS was a regrettable step backward.

“We’re in a context of globalization, we can’t isolate ourselves,” he said. “Sovereignty begins first by production – we have a great many natural resources, but we don’t have the capacity to process them ourselves.”

“We don’t change things just by making speeches,” he added.

According to Baudais, the three military chiefs faced significant odds.

“Sovereignty cannot be eaten,” she said. “These regimes place significant expectations on themselves. Economic difficulties like the one Mali is experiencing today, with the lack of electricity, can and will weaken the regime if living conditions continue to deteriorate.”

Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that the military leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger signed a new defense pact called the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) during a summit in Niger’s capital.