Niger: Tiani’s post-coup purge strips 25 citizens of nationality

Five more Nigeriens have been stripped of their citizenship under a decree signed on 17 September, bringing the total to 25 in a crackdown that has widened since the failed coup attempt of 29 August. Among those targeted is former Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, who served under deposed president Mohamed Bazoum.

The decree that changed the rules

The presidential decree, signed by General Abdourahamane Tiani, provisionally revokes the nationality of five individuals. It cites “intelligence with foreign powers”, the dissemination of data liable to disturb public order, alleged participation in an effort to demoralise the army and the nation, and threats to state security.

These are accusations and legal proceedings, not a final judicial conviction. The politically charged symbol, however, is unmistakable: one of those affected is not an ordinary opponent but a former head of government under the man Tiani overthrew.

Inside the 29 August assault

The decree did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed an armed attempt to seize power that began with attacks on the presidential palace, Air Base 101 and the public television station. For several hours, the balance of forces inside the military apparatus remained uncertain. Military personnel reportedly hesitated over which side to back while mutineers sought to win over other officers.

According to reporting by Le Monde, the junta relied on several hundred Russian Africa Corps troops to retake Air Base 101. The same source indicates that at least 200 soldiers, mainly from special forces units, have been arrested since 29 August.

Tiani survived the attempt. The equation of power did not.

A command chain in motion

The first major move came on 11 September, when the chief of defence staff, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, was dismissed. Days later, four ministers were replaced. Officially, the changes are presented as reorganisation, fixing dysfunctions and securing the chain of command.

In politics, timing tells its own story. After a direct threat, the regime has chosen to regroup around those it deems most reliable, an operation that quietly expands the list of those considered suspect.

The shadow of Bazoum

Three years after the 2023 coup, Mohamed Bazoum remains a central figure in Niger’s political confrontation. His regime is gone, his institutions dismantled, yet the men who served him keep surfacing in the security and judicial files of the new authorities.

The latest decree extends a mechanism introduced in 2024. With the five new cases, the total number of Nigeriens provisionally deprived of their nationality now stands at 25, according to the state press agency.

When security becomes politics

A question inevitably arises: at what point does the defence of the state stop being a security operation and become a political clean-up? The question can be asked without presuming the guilt or innocence of those concerned.

Since 29 August, the threat facing the Nigerien authorities no longer comes only from armed groups or external adversaries. It can, according to the reported events, emerge from within the military apparatus itself. When the loyalty of soldiers becomes a central concern, the temptation grows to hunt for those responsible, for relays, accomplices and sponsors.

The risk is that suspicion becomes a method of government. A general replaced. A minister sidelined. Soldiers arrested. Former officials of the Bazoum era targeted. And now citizens stripped, temporarily, of their nationality. Taken separately, each act has an official justification. Taken together, they sketch the portrait of a power that, after being directly threatened, is trying to regain control of every circle that could represent a vulnerability.

A regime that trusts no one?

Perhaps the most uncomfortable question for the authorities is this: how do you govern for the long term when a power born of a coup discovers that another coup can be applied to it?

Tiani now knows that mechanics from the inside. He knows a military regime can look firmly installed until the day a few officers decide to cross a line. The events of 29 August turned the impossible into the possible and the unthinkable into something that unfolded around the presidential palace.

When a power realises it can be toppled by the same methods that brought it to the top, fear of the next plot can quickly become a political obsession.

The charge of “Niger is me”

This is where critics of the regime detect a troubling drift. By deciding who is loyal, who is suspect, who must be arrested, who must be sidelined and now who may provisionally keep their nationality, Tiani gives his detractors the impression of a leader acting as though he alone holds the keys to the Republic.

As though Niger must be divided between those who support the authorities and those who must be excluded. As though having served under Bazoum were now a permanent political offence. As though every dissenting voice must necessarily conceal a plot.

Tiani is not Niger. But the concentration of decisions around his person feeds a fundamental question: how far can a regime go when, in order to protect itself, it ends up seeing a threat behind every face?

The paradox of a putsch-born power

Here lies the full irony of the story. Tiani reached the summit through a coup. Today he leads a regime that has just survived an attempted putsch. Between those two dates, Niger appears to have tipped into a cycle in which each crisis produces new purges, each suspicion brings a new sanction, and each challenge reinforces the concentration of power.

The decree of 17 September is therefore not merely a nationality matter. It is another episode in a larger battle: that of a power trying to eliminate the zones of uncertainty around itself.

One question remains, perhaps the most important. In fighting real or supposed plots, is Tiani building a system in which any challenge automatically becomes a plot? If so, the issue would no longer be simply who wants to overthrow him. It would also be why a power that calls itself firmly installed now seems so afraid of those around it.

And above all, how far this logic will go. For when a regime starts treating its own citizens as potential threats, the line between protecting the state and protecting the power becomes dangerously thin.

By Claire Mvondo — Security and State Policy Expert