More than eighteen months have passed since the 26 July 2023 coup that placed General Abdourahamane Tiani at the head of Niger, and the patriotic façade erected by the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP) is cracking in spectacular fashion. Behind the sovereignty rhetoric and the military parades lies a far grimmer operational reality. Niger’s armed forces are not merely buckling under asphyxiating security pressure along the borders — they are dissolving from within, and the surge of desertions is the clearest sign that a broad section of the troops no longer stands behind the man who commands them.

From isolated acts of insubordination to an open flood of departures

What started out as scattered cases of disobedience has hardened into a genuine stream of soldiers walking off their posts. Dozens of them, stripped of their illusions and left to fend for themselves in remote garrisons, are choosing to flee. What alarms Niamey even more is that these deserters no longer simply slip back into civilian life: they take with them their tactical know-how, and at times their weapons, to join armed opposition groups or terrorist organisations.

Fresh blood for the Patriotic Front for Liberation

A sizeable number of battle-hardened fighters have enlisted with the Patriotic Front for Liberation (FPL), the rebel movement led by Mahmoud Sadi that calls for a return to constitutional order and the release of deposed president Mohamed Bazoum. By swelling its ranks, these soldiers hand the FPL an unsettling tactical credibility, converting a political rebellion into a structured paramilitary threat able to target strategic infrastructure such as the oil pipeline connecting Niger to Benin.

A line crossed with JNIM

Even more worrying for regional stability, some soldiers go further and join Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Al-Qaeda’s Sahel branch. Pushed by despair, a feeling of abandonment or material motives, these former members of the regular army give jihadists an intimate knowledge of the local security grid, leaving military bases in western Niger more exposed than ever before.

Chronically short of kit against a better-armed enemy

How did things reach this point? In the field, the resentment of the rank and file is rooted in living and fighting conditions that have turned unbearable. Despite the regime’s warmongering rhetoric, supplies never keep pace. Units dispatched to the scorching frontlines of Tillabéri or Diffa face a dramatic shortage of the most elementary means.

• Spare parts for the armoured vehicle fleet are almost impossible to come by
• Fuel is rationed, and reserve ammunition is burned through quickly during firefights
• Soldiers confront mobile armed groups equipped with light drones and modern assault rifles, while they themselves often lack basic personal protective equipment or secure communication systems
• Hazard bonuses are paid late again and again, and wounded troops receive inadequate care

That visible contrast between the comfort of senior junta figures installed in Niamey and the misery of the soldier in combat fuels a deep-seated bitterness.

The night of 28-29 August: Russian allies firing on Nigerien troops

The army’s distrust of the top of the political pyramid hit a point of no return late in the summer. During the night of 28 to 29 August, an extremely serious episode laid bare the gaping split between the troops and the high command: an attempted uprising was crushed in blood, with the regime’s Russian allies at the centre of it.

Faced with mounting dissent inside several Nigerien army units, the junta turned to Russian Africa Corps personnel to lock down key positions and stamp out any mutinous stirrings. In the course of those nocturnal clashes, Russian mercenaries opened fire straight at Nigerien military personnel. The tragedy, in which several national soldiers died from foreign bullets on their own soil, triggered a shockwave and indescribable outrage across the barracks.

For non-commissioned officers, watching a regime that brands itself “sovereigntist” order foreign mercenaries to shoot its own troops amounts to the ultimate betrayal. General Tiani’s moral authority over the ranks collapsed that night.

A junta trapped by the very army that lifted it to power

Far from the picture of a unified, unshakeable military power, Niger’s junta now appears hollowed out by the base of the institution that carried it into office. By answering neither the logistical needs of its troops nor the population’s longing for stability, General Tiani finds himself isolated. The scale of the desertions and the flight of skills toward rebellion or jihadism prove that Niger’s army refuses to act as cannon fodder for a regime whose aims it no longer shares. Should the fissure keep widening at today’s pace, the gravest threat to the CNSP will not come from outside the country — it will emerge from inside its own barracks.

By Yacouba Ouédraogo — Investigative journalist