A failed coup, a widening purge
On 29 August 2026, Niger’s presidential palace came under fire. The air base 101 was attacked. The state television headquarters was targeted. For several hours, the balance of power inside the military remained uncertain. According to Le Monde, some soldiers hesitated to take sides while mutineers tried to rally other officers.
For Abdourahamane Tiani, who took power by force on 26 July 2023, the message was brutal: the very scenario he had helped to set in motion could now be turned against him.
The turning point of 29 August
The attempted putsch did not topple Tiani. But it profoundly changed the equation of power. According to Le Monde, the junta had to rely on several hundred Russian Africa Corps soldiers to retake air base 101. The newspaper also reports that at least 200 military personnel have been arrested since 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. Days later, four ministers were replaced. Le Monde describes a power that, after the coup attempt, “closes ranks”.
Officially, the moves are about reorganisation, dysfunction and securing the chain of command. But in politics, timing matters. And the timing tells a story: after being threatened, the regime is reorganising around those it considers most reliable.
The 17 September decree
On 17 September, another thunderbolt. 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 “intelligence with foreign powers”, the dissemination of data likely to disturb public order, alleged participation in an enterprise to demoralise the army and the nation, and breaches of state security. It must be stressed: 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 power.
With this new decree, five Nigeriens are now provisionally deprived of their nationality under a mechanism introduced in 2024. According to the Nigerien Press Agency, the total now stands at 25 people.
A question then arises: at what point does defending the state cease to be solely 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 power that seeks enemies everywhere?
This is where the case becomes more troubling. Since 29 August, the Nigerien authorities have 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, relays, accomplices or sponsors. The risk is then that suspicion becomes a method of government.
A soldier 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 draw the image of a power that, after being directly threatened, seeks to regain control of all circles likely to represent a vulnerability.
Tiani, the president who no longer trusts anyone?
This is perhaps the most embarrassing question for the regime. How can a power born from a coup govern sustainably when it discovers that another coup can be applied to it?
General Tiani now knows this mechanism from the inside. He knows that a military power can seem solidly 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 power discovers that it can be overthrown by the same methods that brought it to the top, the 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 had to be divided between those who support the power and those who must be excluded. As if serving under Bazoum now constituted a permanent political fault. As if every dissenting voice must necessarily hide 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
This is where the irony of the story lies. Tiani rose to 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 power 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 be necessary to ask why a power that claims to be solidly installed now seems to fear those around it so much.
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 power becomes dangerously thin.
