Assessing impact of the emerging multipolar world order and social media on ECOWAS military intervention in Niger: A perspective

Abstract

The emerging multipolar world order, the yearnings of African countries to join the BRICS+ banks, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiatives, the urge to swap buyers of mineral resources, the inroads of Wagner Mercenary support for military Juntas against seeming highhandedness of former colonial masters could be seen accounting for the divisiveness bedeviling ECOWAS and AU in sharing common ground to condemn and militarily intervene in the Niger Coup that ousted Bezaoum. In Nigeria, the social media colourized the ECOWAS military intervention with “President Tinubu’s wars” and this position was further aggravated by the unsettled 2023 political dust, the aggravated economic landscape, the deep cultural connection between Northern Nigeria and the Niger, and the fear of spillover of military interventions, all acting in the favour of the Niger Junta. It was against this fuzzy background that this desktop research, engage the theory of Prebendalism to investigate the influencing impact of the emerging multipolar world order and social media on ECOWAS military intervention in Niger. The submission that emerged from the study showed that most African countries who had their BRICS+ application pending could not be seen at the forefront against the Niger Junta who did not only deploy anti-imperialism rhetoric to whip up nationalistic sentiments but quickly aligned with Russia while China remain at the background with three of her oil giants making economic landmark inroads on Niger oilfields. Findings that emanate from the study revealed that the Nigeria government as the ECOWAS Chairman lost swift military interventions in the people's courts to the social media restraints at home, which painted the intervention as war and a needless war against her Northern region which share ethnical, families and economic ties with Niger. This study recommends that AU, ECOWAS, and other regional blocs should condemn member States leveraging on state alliance or non-alliance status to support tenure elongations, and fraudulent elections which magnetise Coups and should deepen their common ground against military incursion into the political space. The study also recommends the evolvement of strong democratic institutions whose tones can dull the misinformation trajectories that come with social media.