The following account examines the widening divide between the security discourse maintained by Niger’s transitional authorities and the lived experience of communities repeatedly exposed to armed attacks.
They pledged to seize back control. To restore safety. To return to Niger its sovereignty and its dignity. Three years on from the July 2023 coup d’état, the Conseil national pour la sauvegarde de la patrie (CNSP) continues to frame its accession to power as a historic rupture with the past.
Yet far from Niamey, a different picture emerges.
In districts regularly struck by armed groups, residents continue to endure fear, uncertainty and, at times, the conviction that they have been abandoned to their own fate. Villages are hit, families displaced, livelihoods brought to a standstill. And one question returns with insistence: where are the leaders when attacks strike?
This may well be one of the most troubling contradictions of the military transition.
A promise of protection delivered from a distance
Since taking power, the CNSP has made security one of the central pillars of its claim to legitimacy. The overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum was justified in part by the deterioration of the security situation.
The commitment was unambiguous: to do better.
Yet in the regions most exposed to violence, particularly in the west of the country, attacks continue to set the rhythm of daily life. Against this backdrop, a persistent observation fuels doubt: the officials who embody the transition seldom appear in the areas directly affected, at the very moment when inhabitants are confronting the aftermath.
Announcements issued from the capital
The authorities communicate from the capital. They announce operations, hail military successes and promise responses. But for those living close to the most dangerous zones, the questions are far more concrete: who comes to assess the damage? Who meets the bereaved families? Who explains what occurred and what will be done to prevent a recurrence?
A government that has made security its principal justification cannot indefinitely confine itself to discussing war from the offices of the capital.
Niamey under close watch, the periphery under strain
It is among the most visible paradoxes of the system established since the coup.
At the summit, the regime’s own security has become an absolute priority. Signs of mistrust within the military apparatus, shifts in the hierarchy and the multiplication of control mechanisms all point to a leadership preoccupied with its own stability.
Meanwhile, far from the political centre, the population faces a different form of insecurity — one that kills, displaces, closes schools, destroys local economies and upends everyday life.
Two realities appear to coexist.
On one side, an authority focused on its survival and the protection of its apparatus. On the other, citizens still waiting for the pledge of protection made in the aftermath of the coup to materialise in their daily lives.
Sovereignty, after all, should not end at the gates of Niamey.
The communities carrying the burden of the conflict
Behind every military communiqué lies a reality that official figures rarely convey in full.
There are families leaving their villages.
Farmers hesitant to return to their fields.
Traders whose businesses have ground to a halt.
Children whose schooling has been interrupted.
And entire communities living in anticipation of the next attack.
It is precisely in these territories that the success or failure of the transition ought to be measured.
Not solely in official ceremonies.
Not only in speeches about sovereignty.
But in the capacity of the state to protect those who have no escort, no palace and no dedicated security detail.
The difficulty is not merely military. It is also political.
For when a population senses that its leaders are visible at ceremonies, in speeches and in announcements, yet absent when danger strikes, confidence inevitably begins to erode.
A transition that communicates more than it confronts the ground
The CNSP has built a substantial part of its image on the break with the previous system. New partnerships, a new diplomatic language, the denunciation of foreign influence: communication around sovereignty has become one of the regime’s cornerstones.
But communication does not substitute for presence.
A state may announce victories. It may denounce its adversaries. It may mobilise the vocabulary of patriotism and resistance.
Yet one question remains: do people genuinely feel more protected?
It is here that official discourse meets its limits.
Sovereignty cannot be measured solely by the number of foreign partners expelled or welcomed. It is also measured by a state’s capacity to control its territory and to protect its citizens, particularly those living in the most vulnerable areas.
When attacks persist and populations remain exposed, slogans ultimately collide with a reality far harder to conceal.
The quiet of the field, the echo of the speeches
The question now facing Niger extends beyond the person of General Abdourahamane Tiani.
It concerns an entire system of governance.
Can a seizure of power continue to be justified by the security failures of the previous regime without accepting, three years later, to be judged by the same standard?
Can proximity to the people be claimed while the populations of the most exposed areas await a more visible state presence?
And above all, how long can a transition ask the population to wait while the promise that underpinned its arrival in power remains largely unfulfilled?
True patriotism is not measured by the force of a speech.
It is measured also by the capacity of a leader to look his people’s suffering in the face.
To travel where the state is expected.
To own failures as well as victories.
And to understand that a government does not protect a nation from the offices of the capital alone.
The moment of reckoning
In Niger, the authorities continue to speak of sovereignty, security and rupture.
But in the areas where attacks persist, another reality imposes its own questions.
Can a regime present itself as the saviour of a people without going to meet those who live daily with the consequences of insecurity?
This may be where the true assessment of the transition lies.
Not in slogans.
Not in ceremonies.
Not in televised statements.
But on those roads, in those villages and among those families who, when attacks occur, are still waiting to learn whether the state will truly reach them.
For governing a country at war does not consist merely of protecting the government. It consists first of all of not leaving the people alone to face the war.
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