[Exclusive interview] Niger: President-elect Mohamed Bazoum asks the French to maintain their air force
Audio 14:54
The elected president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum.
© RFI
By: Christophe Boisbouvier Follow
28 mins
In Niger, for the first time since the proclamation of his victory on March 21, Mohamed Bazoum speaks.
In an exclusive interview with RFI and France 24, the elected president does not rule out a partial withdrawal of French forces from Barkhane, but asks Paris to maintain its air force in the Sahel.
Mohamed Bazoum also reveals that in 2016-2017, the government of Niger tried to negotiate a truce with the jihadists, but had to give it up in the face of their intransigence.
An exclusive interview with Christophe Boisbouvier from RFI and Marc Perelman from France 24.
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: Niger has just experienced an unprecedented election, because for the first time, there is a democratic transition which sees two elected presidents succeed one another.
But it is a ballot which was marred by a post-electoral crisis, which agitated the streets of Niamey, the streets of some towns in Niger… Did we not rejoice a little too quickly, sir? President ?
And in a nutshell, isn't that blurring a form of state of grace that we could hope for when you start your mandate
?
Mohamed Bazoum
:
No, I don't think so.
There was a little tension in the city of Niamey, less than two days, in truth, which indicates the somewhat artificial nature of this agitation.
After two days, it ran out of steam.
This is proof that it was not genuine.
In fact, some actors had announced that there would be unrest on election day itself, before anyone had any idea of the results.
Having said that, we would have liked there to have been no such unrest, because this is the first time that this has happened.
But today, it is rather behind us.
There were the demonstrations, but there were also above all the terrorist attacks. During the campaign, Mr. Chairman, you said
: "
The deadly attacks on military camps, like Inates and Chinagodar are over, we have found the parade
"
.
But unfortunately, today, it is the civilians who are massacred -66 dead near Bani Bangou, in the region of Tillabéri, 137 dead near Tilia, in the region of Tahoua ... Are the jihadists of the EIGS -The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara- aren't you challenging you, when you take the reins of the country
?
I don't think it has anything to do with the elections and the results.
This only stems from a dynamic on the ground, in the jihadists' relationship with the communities, on which they want to impose their diktat.
Regarding Tilia more specifically
, what we know is that for some time you have had a lot of motorcycles in the area, which take what they call Zakat from these populations, which they have reached. more or less to submit.
But in recent weeks, due to the presence of a vigorous patrol of the National Guard and an evolution a little further north, in the area of Agarak, the populations have been a little more resistant to paying the tithe. .
Certainly what happened has something to do with this situation.
I know that a few weeks ago, the jihadists came to see this Ifokaritan community to tell them: It is no longer enough for you to pay Zakat.
If you are in the perspective of Islam as we advocate it, you must join us.
And for that, you must give us a contingent of young people, who would be in our ranks and who would act for the cause of Islam.
During these discussions, the Ifokaritan tribe had to tell them that this is not possible.
So they promised that if that didn't happen, they would crack down.
They consider that, from now on, they are with the regime and no longer with Islam.
I think it has to do with very local dynamics, rather than with the national situation.
Mr. President, according to a recent report by the NGO International Crisis Group, it seems that, especially in the attacks of March 15 and 21, these attackers returned to avenge - it is a form of blood feud - some of their own who had been killed. And the question we can ask ourselves today is: is not Niger, as in certain neighboring countries, entering a cycle of community violence
?
Yes, obviously, when there are actions of this kind, large-scale massacres against a targeted community… Because everywhere, they had well-defined targets.
Before the operation, they proceeded to sort out the populations they found on the spot.
There are indeed risks of inter-community conflicts.
Because jihadists come under certain communities, unfortunately, and those they attack too, belong to specific communities.
The whole challenge for us is to ensure that there is not this escalation and that it does not go beyond the strict framework of operations carried out by thugs that we know, against the state or against populations that we have the mission to defend.
This is the state's challenge and we are going to face it.
We will assume it.
You are going to face it, you say. So I imagine that you will be recruiting new members of the army. But in neighboring Mali, the Prime Minister openly declares that it is necessary to negotiate with the jihadists. In Niger, isn't the hard way showing its limits
?
Isn't it time to change strategy and open a channel for discussion with certain jihadist movements
?
You have very different situations in Mali and Niger and the comparison is not right, we could not envisage any dialogue whatsoever.
We, insofar as you do not have a single Nigerien jihadist leader, you do not have a single jihadist base on our territory… You have never heard any statement from a major actor who alludes to Niger , to governance in this country and which poses any problem whatsoever.
Moreover, when in April 2016, I was placed at the head of the Ministry of the Interior, I tried to have a discussion channel.
I sent envoys to young Nigeriens
who are in the EIGS
and who are very operational in our territory.
Their response was to tell me that what interests them is the jihad in Mali.
They have nothing to do with Niger.
I told them, through the emissaries that I sent them, that I was ready to discuss with them, if they were to say that they are Nigeriens, even belonging to a certain community, and that they have very precise demands, in relation to our governance, in relation to their living conditions.
And that we were prepared to meet all their demands.
They sent me a list of twenty-two people who were detained in our prisons, telling me: these are our friends that the army arrested.
We want them to be released.
They gave an ultimatum for the end of February 2017. After which - they warned me - we will stop the ceasefire that we have been observing since you have been in the Ministry of the Interior and that you tried to chat with us.
Then, towards the end of February, they did attack us.
Since then, the situation has deteriorated.
We don't have Nigeriens, we don't have Nigerien partners.
We have people from the Maghreb, who are at the head of the EIGS and who engage in jihadism in Mali, mainly - according to them, in any case - and who are making incursions into Niger.
We cannot argue with people who are not Nigeriens.
And since there are no Nigeriens with whom we can discuss, the question for us does not arise.
We should not compare our situation with that of Mali, therefore.
You are well aware, of course, that there is an electoral campaign which will begin in France, which will put the French president in the ranks, and that this operation Barkhane, which is expensive, is increasingly unpopular in the world. French opinion. If, very concretely, the French withdrew, even partially, it would be, for you, a taste of unfinished business, even you would feel that as a Nigerien like an abandonment of the French
?
No, we wouldn't feel that as an abandonment on the part of the French.
Barkhane is especially in Mali.
This is what we must first know.
Then, of course, we would have liked, in the context of our cooperation with the French army, to have better results than we have.
This relative failure is the failure of all of us and the failure of the whole coalition.
But a partial withdrawal of France, insofar as it maintains the air force, will not have a great effect on the course of the situation and on the balance of power.
You know that the French army is not physically involved on the ground against the jihadists.
The mode of action, the concept of operations, as it is carried out, proceeding from a desire to save the maximum amount of loss of human life, dictated a behavior to the French army, which means that, even if some troops are withdrawn, it will not have a big impact on the ground.
The impact will be more symbolic and political than simply operational.
What matters to us is a certain presence of the French air forces, which, from my point of view, will be guaranteed, whatever the French troops who will be present as part of this operation.
Let us return to Nigerien politics ... For a month, former Prime Minister Hama Amadou, one of your main opponents, has been in prison. The prosecutor accuses him of inciting ethnic hatred and of making racist remarks. Why stop him in March for dating facts
?
Not being the prosecutor, nor the Minister of Justice, I could not give you an answer to this question.
Since the announcement of your victory, you must not admit that former Prime Minister Hama has not made any seditious words. If the situation remains calm, would you welcome his eventual release
?
This is a question, for the moment, that I do not ask myself.
So I couldn't answer it.
Let's talk about your major challenges, the challenges that await your mandate: the fight against corruption, which was, moreover, one of the battle horses during the opposition campaign. For example, this audit which reveals that 76 billion CFA francs were embezzled in an armaments contract at the Ministry
of Defense.
In this specific example, will the culprits ever be tried
?
I can imagine that if there are culprits - and certainly there are - they will be judged and we will ensure that they are.
I would like to tell you that there was no audit.
On the figures, the reality is very different from what we have been able to know in general.
That said, at the Ministry of National Defense of Niger, under our regime, things happened with which we do not agree, with which President Issoufou does not agree ... who explained that he wanted to see more closely what is happening.
These are things that cannot go unpunished.
We will make sure that impunity stops when Nigeriens do things like this.
You are preparing, Mr. President, to govern a country which suffers from poverty, 40% of the population lives under 2 dollars a day and is maintained in this poverty, in particular by the supernatural rate. Seven children per woman, on average, is the world record. How are you going to succeed in meeting this challenge, where - it must be said - all your predecessors failed
?
I intend to promote education in our country.
It seems extremely important to me.
Place particular emphasis on the education of young girls, in conditions different from those which have been implemented so far, so that we can keep girls as much as possible in school.
For this, I intend in particular to create boarding schools in nearby colleges, at the village level.
We have what we call rural colleges, and inside I plan to build boarding schools for young girls.
Because very often what happens is that when a girl enters 6th grade and college is not in her parents' village, her parents tend to consider that she will be in poor condition. which will not promote either his education at school or his education in the family.
The practice is to take them out of the school system.
By building many boarding schools in nearby colleges, I intend to ensure that these girls are safe from early marriages.
And when we keep the girls in school until the age of 18, we will have saved each of these girls an early marriage and a few childbirth, maybe two, maybe even three… 77% of the girls Nigerien women are married before the age of 18 and 28% of them are married before the age of 15.
If we massively educate girls and if we keep them in school for a long time, we have a way in which we can fight against this phenomenon of child and child marriage, when they are not even of age. 15 years old.
It is a great challenge and we talk about it without taboos.
President Issoufou spoke about it in a very courageous way, but we will still have to be courageous and make sure that we discuss this problem.
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