NIGERIANS AGAINST U.S. & FRENCH MILITARY BASES

Now that Niger has announced its expulsion of US troops and Sahelian states have kicked out French military forces, could the two Western powers be eyeing its southern neighbour, Nigeria?

The leaders of research institutes and civil society organisations delivered a letter on 3 May to Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Assembly, rejecting any proposal to allow Western military bases into Nigeria.

The letter points out that terrorism worsened in the Sahel, an arid zone south of the Sahara Desert, during the period of US military occupation. According to a study by the US Department of Defense’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, terrorism has increased by more than 100,000 per cent since US launched its ‘War on Terror’ in 2001. Additionally, according to the Global Terrorism Index, 43 per cent of all terrorism-related deaths in 2022 occurred in the Sahel. That year, more people died from terrorism there than in West Asia, South Asia and North Africa combined.