When a coup leader starts fearing his own soldiers
On 26 July 2023, General Abdourahamane Tiani seized power by overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum. Three years later, on 29 August 2026, the man who took power by force found himself facing an attempted overthrow. This time, the threat did not come from outside. It came from within.
The presidential palace was targeted. Air Base 101 was attacked. The public television station was stormed. For several hours, the balance of power inside the military apparatus remained uncertain. Some soldiers hesitated to take sides while mutineers tried to rally other officers. For a man who rose to power through a coup, the message was brutal: the very scenario he had helped set in motion could now turn against him.
The 29 August turning point
The attempted putsch did not topple Tiani. But it profoundly changed the equation of power. Reports indicate that the junta had to rely on several hundred Russian Africa Corps soldiers to retake Air Base 101. At least 200 military personnel have been arrested since the events of 29 August, mainly from the special forces.
Then the chain of command began to shift. On 11 September, the chief of defence staff, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, was dismissed. A few days later, four ministers were replaced. Officially, the moves are described as reorganisation, addressing dysfunctions and securing the command structure. But in politics, timing matters. And the timing tells a story: after being threatened, the regime is reorganising around those it considers most reliable.
Then came the decree
On 17 September, another thunderbolt. Abdourahamane Tiani signed a decree provisionally stripping five people of their Nigerien nationality. Among them: Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, former prime minister under Mohamed Bazoum.
The decree cites acts including “intelligence with foreign powers”, dissemination of data likely to disturb public order, presumed participation in an effort to demoralise the army and the nation, and breaches of state security. It must be emphasised: these are accusations and prosecutions mentioned in the decree, not a final judicial conviction.
But politically, the symbolism is heavy. Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou is not just any opponent. He belongs to the former state apparatus. He served as prime minister under Mohamed Bazoum, the president Tiani overthrew. And that is precisely where the case takes on another dimension.
Bazoum is no longer in power, but his shadow remains
Three years after the coup, former president Mohamed Bazoum remains a central figure in Niger’s political confrontation. His regime has disappeared. His institutions have been dismantled. But the men who served him continue to appear in the security and judicial files of the new regime.
With this new decree, five Nigeriens are now provisionally deprived of their nationality under the framework established in 2024. According to the Nigerien press agency, the total now stands at 25 people.
A question arises: at what point does state defence cease to be merely a security operation and become a political cleansing operation? The question deserves to be asked without presuming the guilt or innocence of those targeted.
A regime searching for enemies everywhere?
This is where the case becomes more troubling. Since 29 August, the Nigerien regime has had to manage a threat that no longer comes only from armed groups or external adversaries. The threat can now, according to reported events, come from within the military apparatus itself.
And when the loyalty of soldiers becomes a central question, the temptation can be strong to look for those responsible, for relays, for accomplices or for sponsors. The risk is then that suspicion becomes a method of government.
A military officer replaced. A minister sidelined. Soldiers arrested. Former officials of the Bazoum regime targeted. And now, citizens provisionally stripped of their nationality. Taken separately, each of these acts has its official justification. Put end to end, they nevertheless paint the picture of a regime that, after being directly threatened, is seeking to regain control of every circle that could represent a vulnerability.
Tiani: the president who trusts no one?
This may be the most embarrassing question for the regime. How can a government durably rule when a power born from a coup discovers that another coup can be applied to it?
General Tiani now knows this mechanism from the inside. He knows that a military regime can seem firmly installed until the day a few officers decide to cross a line. 29 August demonstrated it. What was supposed to be impossible became possible. What was supposed to be unthinkable happened around the presidential palace.
And when a regime discovers it can be overthrown by the same methods that brought it to the top, fear of the next plot can quickly become a political obsession.
“Niger is me”?
This is precisely where critics of the regime see a worrying drift. By deciding who is loyal, who is suspect, who must be arrested, who must be sidelined and now who can provisionally keep their nationality, Tiani gives his detractors the impression of a leader who behaves as if he alone holds the keys to the Republic.
As if Niger must be divided between those who support the regime and those who must be excluded from it. As if serving under Bazoum has now become a permanent political fault. As if every dissenting voice must necessarily conceal a plot.
General Tiani is obviously not Niger. But the concentration of decisions around his person fuels a fundamental question: how far can a regime go when, to protect itself, it ends up seeing threats behind every face?
The paradox of a power born from a putsch
Here lies the entire irony of this story. Tiani reached the top after a coup. Today, he leads a regime that has itself just escaped an attempted putsch. And between these two dates, Niger seems to have tipped into a cycle where each crisis produces new purges, each suspicion calls for a new sanction and each attempt at contestation reinforces the concentration of power.
The 17 September decree is therefore not just a matter of nationality. It is a new episode in a broader battle: that of a regime seeking to eliminate the zones of uncertainty around it.
One question remains, perhaps the most important: by fighting real or supposed plots, is Tiani building a system where any contestation automatically becomes a plot?
If so, the problem would no longer be just knowing who wants to overthrow Tiani. It would also mean asking why a regime that claims to be firmly installed now seems so afraid of those around it. And above all, how far will this logic go? For when a regime begins to consider its own citizens as potential threats, the line between protecting the state and protecting the regime becomes dangerously thin.
